Gender Equality: Fiscal Policies

Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
9. What recent assessment he has made of the effect of his fiscal policies on gender equality.

Mr Speaker
Does anybody want a question? Ah, Minister.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)
Our fiscal policies support the Government’s ambition of creating a fairer and more equal society, and women are among those who will benefit the most. For example, women are expected to benefit disproportionately from the Government’s increase to the national living wage to £9.50 for workers aged 23 and above, as well as the rise in the national minimum wage for young people and apprentices.

Hannah Bardell
I am glad you found someone to answer, Mr Speaker.

Some 6,500 women in my Livingston constituency are WASPI women and they are furious. When I recently met them with the Women Against State Pension Inequality co-ordinator Carla O’Hara, there was anger and anxiety and there were many, many tears. Will the Minister tell me and the WASPI women from his constituency and from the constituencies of Members throughout this Chamber whether the

“fresh vigour and new eyes”

that the Prime Minister promised back in July 2019 is still on the table? Or is it, yet again, another broken promise?

Mr Clarke
The Government have always considered this issue, which goes back over the past decade, very carefully. For the purposes of intergenerational fairness and the wider sustainability of our pension settlement into the future, it is vital that that settlement is reflective of longer life expectancy. I am afraid that is the underpinning principle of the Government’s work and we stand resolutely behind it.