Employment: Females

(asked on 19th April 2021) - View Source

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to ensure that the covid-19 recovery plan considers the needs of the female workforce.


Answered by
Kemi Badenoch Portrait
Kemi Badenoch
President of the Board of Trade
This question was answered on 27th April 2021

To protect people’s jobs and livelihoods across the UK since the emergence of Covid-19, the Government has already provided support on a scale unmatched in recent history. As of 28 February, 2.14 million jobs held by women were supported by the CJRS, and by 31 January 632,000 women had claimed for SEISS. Alongside this, the Government’s Plan for Jobs launched action to support individuals to get into work, including through the £2bn Kickstart scheme and £2.9bn Restart programme.

In addition to our Plan for Jobs, our plan to Build Back Better will support the female workforce and drive economic growth by investing in infrastructure, skills and innovation.

We also want to retain the positive culture shifts around flexible working that we have seen as a result of Covid-19 and support men and women to share care and work between them. We want to make it easier for people to work flexibly and in our manifesto we committed to further encouraging flexible working by consulting on making it the default unless employers have good reasons not to.

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