Gender equality is central to Labour’s Missions. Policymakers can’t afford to overlook it.

This article was first published on Labour Hub on 3 October 2024

The success of Labour’s Five Missions for Government will hinge on how they deliver on gender equality.

Labour’s promise to the British electorate in the run-up to the 2024 General Election was conveyed through one clear, central message: this would be a government of change. When asked how this change would be achieved specifically, they unveiled a plan that focused on the delivery of five key priorities, known as their Missions for Government. The Five Missions are an extensive project to “rebuild Britain”, encompassing a strategy for economic growth, plans for the green transition, a commitment to increased safety and security, breaking down barriers to opportunity, and tackling the crisis of the NHS.

The starting point for the Government’s mission-driven approach is ensuring that we have strong economic foundations on which to build. The last fourteen years of austerity and the Covid-19 pandemic, however, have precipitated a sharp decline in living standards that has disproportionately affected women on low incomes, lone mothers, Disabled and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic women. These are the groups who have borne the brunt of the cuts to public services and changes to tax and social security experienced in the last decade, the on-and-off freeze on working-age benefits being the main driver of income loss for women since 2010. In order to rebuild the foundations of the economy, it is crucial that we begin by restoring the financial resilience of households, who are the backbone of our economy.

A first step in this direction is recognising that the economy and wider society are largely dependent on women’s unpaid work, which impacts their ability to participate in paid employment and the choices available to them in the labour market. This has ripple effects in many other areas, such as housing, social care, healthcare, child poverty, and criminal justice. Since men and women are not in an equal position in the economy, they are often impacted differently by the same policies.

The consequences of designing policy without considering this fact are significant, both for women but also for the wider economy. The exclusion of women’s experiences from the policy agenda is costing the UK an estimated £94.9 bn annually, so efforts to address the the issues facing this Government and promote a strong economy will fall short unless policymakers face the challenge head-on. For that reason, integrating gender into all policy areas and conducting Equality Impact Assessments to understand and learn from how policy impacts different groups of people in our society differently, should be common practice across governmental departments. As Chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves should lead by example.

Without adequate and sustained investment in our social infrastructure, however, solutions to gender inequality will only be temporary. Public services like early education and childcare, social care, transport and healthcare are essential for women to be able to participate fully and freely in paid employment. Good public services underpin a strong economy, so we cannot afford to wait for ‘economic growth’ before we invest in them.

That is why we are calling on the Government to revise their adherence to arbitrary fiscal rules and unlock the funding urgently needed to support the foundational services of our economy. Fiscal rules can be a useful mechanism to ensure that governments are borrowing and spending responsibly, but given the dire state of local government finances and public services, the responsible course of action right now is to prioritise sufficient levels of funding for our essential social infrastructure. Failure to do so would continue to push those most vulnerable into further deprivation, and cost society more in the long run, ultimately preventing the Government from successfully achieving their missions.

Our new briefing: A Feminist Roadmap for the New Government’s 5 Missions, outlines in detail how gender equality underpins each one of Labour’s Missions, and presents a collection of policy recommendations for building a fairer, better economy for all. If the Government is serious about its promise of change and its ambitions to deliver a strong and stable economy, it must begin by placing gender equality at the very centre of their vision.