2013 Autumn Financial Statement: Full Analysis

Background

The Chancellor George Osborne announced his Autumn Financial Statement (AFS) on 5 December 2013 based on the forecasts from the Office of Budget Responsibility. Neither the Chancellor’s speech nor the accompanying 123 page document from the Treasury mention women more than once and the AFS is not accompanied by a full gender impact assessment.

Prior to the Autumn statement, the Chancellor declared that the UK’s economy was ‘turning a corner’. Yet whatever tentative recovery the Chancellor may have been talking about, few in the UK are feeling the benefits and especially women. The Women’s Budget Group have detailed the impact of austerity policies on women noting how more often than not, low and middle income women will be the ones most affected. The 2013 Autumn Statement provided no change to a political agenda that has continually disadvantaged women. Despite calling for a ‘responsible recovery’ we find that many of the Chancellor’s programmes will worsen women’s economic position which leads us to ask, if this is recovery, then recovery for who?

The full analysis can be found here.