Media Round-Up: March 2024

Ahead of the Budget, 

• Sue Himmelweit, emeritus professor of economics at the Open University and Chair of WBG’s Policy Advisory Group, and Viktoria Szczypior, WBG’s Press and Media Officer, wrote an article for Public Sector Focus, explaining why “Tax Cuts Are Bad News For Women”.
• The Guardian covered the letter to the Chancellor which we coordinated together with the TUC, warning that “Cuts to public services in England will ‘reverse’ gender equality”
• We wrote a comment for LBC Views: The Chancellor’s rumoured tax cuts at the expense of investment in public services in this week’s Spring Budget spell disaster, especially for women. 

On Budget Day, we started off the morning on BBC Radio London, with our deputy director Dr Zubaida Haque discussing what the Budget would mean for Londoners with Salma El-Wardany.

Our immediate response was picked up by

• The BBC and The Financial Times, who both referenced our comment on raising the threshold of the Child Benefit Charge.
• And Dr Zubaida Haque appeared on TalkTV with Vanessa Feltz in the afternoon to discuss the gendered impact of the budget.

The day after the Budget,

• Erin Mansell, WBG’s Head of Commmunications and Public Affairs, appeared on TalkTV with Jeremy Kyle and Nicola Thorp, explaining how tax cuts will mean public sector cuts down the line, with a triple whammy effect on women,
• Dr Zubaida Hauqe was interviewed by Mariella Fostrup on Times Radio,
• WBG’s director Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson was on LBC Radio with John Stratford,
• And our analysis splashed the Guardian, headlining ‘How a Conservative budget failed to help women (again)’.

For IWD, our work was referenced in several women’s day pieces

• Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson was quoted in this Metro piece ‘All the ways things are getting worse for women in 2024’,
• Sophie Walker referenced us in an opinion piece in which she asks‘So, when was the best time to be a British woman?’ for the Independent,
• Dawn Butler MP gave us a shout in her column for the Metro,
• The Financial Times published a piece that sets out ‘What women want their financial future to look like’, referencing our Budget analysis on NICs cuts,
• And our work on housing and gender was featured in a piece arguing that Housing is a feminist issue in the Morning Star.