Today’s Autumn Budget marks the first delivered by a female Chancellor, a significant milestone for the political representation of women in the UK. Presented in the wake of successive crises, crumbling public services and a gender pay gap which has risen to 14.8% in Wales¹, it was imperative that the Budget delivered for women in Wales and across the UK.

In this context, we welcome the Chancellor’s decision to amend the Government’s fiscal rules around borrowing and increase rates of Capital Gains Tax, as a more progressive means to enable essential public investment. We are pleased to see investment in UK social infrastructure, and the public services that women – particularly single mothers, disabled women, ethnic minority and racialised women – rely upon and work within, such as education, health and childcare. We hope to see any consequential funding from these announcements utilised by the Welsh Government to deliver equal support to women in Wales. This is particularly important with regards to childcare funding, which has experienced successive budgetary cuts and delays in Wales over the past year. With over a quarter of women in Wales economically inactive due to caring responsibilities,² we urge the Welsh Government to use any consequential funding announced today to deliver the childcare support that parents, particularly mothers, desperately need.

We are concerned, however, that the funding announced today for certain areas of social infrastructure will fail to meet cost pressures. For example, the UK Government’s £600million investment in social care is unlikely to cover the costs of the newly announced employer NICs on social care providers. This resultant lack of support will inevitably result in cuts to provision, disproportionately impacting women who are more likely to work within this sector, and to assume the unpaid caring responsibilities when services are cut. The lack of serious investment in this sector is a crucial barrier to women’s economic equality and wellbeing, and today’s Budget represents a missed opportunity to address this.

Finally, while we welcome the introduction of a Fair Repayment Rate on Universal Credit debt repayments and the increase to the Carer’s Allowance earning limit, we are concerned that other social security measures announced by the Chancellor will disproportionately impact the most vulnerable. For example, the decision to retain the expansion of benefit conditionality to disabled and long-term sick claimants through work capability assessments, is highly regrettable. Further, with inflation currently at a figure of 2.5% by the Chancellor’s own admission, the announced uprating of benefits by 1.7% amounts to a real term cut. In Wales, where 58% of Universal Credit claimants are women³, these measures will perpetuate the economic inequality of the most vulnerable, further entrenching gender inequality.

The full impact of today’s Budget on women in Wales will not be made clear until the publication of the Welsh Government’s Draft Budget in December 2024. Nevertheless, while the Chancellor’s announcements represent a welcome change in direction in some areas, there is still more to do to deliver a budget that truly delivers for all women.

1. Women's Equality Network (WEN) Wales (2024), State of the Nation 2024 https://wenwales.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/SON-Report-2024.English.pdf ↩︎
2. Ibid ↩︎
3. Ibid ↩︎