Women’s Health Outcomes

Lord Sikka Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sikka (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, for this debate.

The key to reversing poor health for women is ensuring that the Government provide a range of public services related to women’s health, child and family care, domestic violence and reproductive and sexual health, as well as a just redistribution of wealth and income. Fiscal and welfare policies have major consequences for women but government announcements are rarely accompanied by any gender impact assessment.

Wage freezes for public sector workers have hit women the hardest, as many occupy low-paid jobs, but there has been no gender impact assessment even though poverty levels are higher for female-headed households. By freezing personal allowances, the 2021 Budget will force poorly paid women to pay more in tax. The 107 pages of the Budget document uses to the word “women” just three times. Childcare was not even mentioned. Some 46% of mothers being made redundant say that lack of childcare is a major factor in their redundancy.

The Government are cutting universal credit by £1,040 a year. That is not accompanied by any assessment of the impact on women. Janet Mackay from Oxfordshire wrote to me. She stated:

“My disabled daughter can’t just get a job and this cut will lower her quality of life. It’s monstrous to do this to the disabled.”


Despite gender inequalities, the Government raised the state pension age to 66 and deprived millions of 1950s-born women of their state pension for six years. The impact assessment said little about the quality of life for women. It does not get any easier after retirement either. As a fraction of average earnings, the UK state pension is one of the lowest in the industrialised world. The charity Independent Age has reported that 2.1 million pensioners are living in poverty and 1.1 million in severe hardship. People aged over 85 are most affected, and women are worse affected than men.

I therefore ask the Minister to give a public undertaking that all fiscal and welfare policies will be accompanied by an impact assessment from women’s perspective.