Agenda Alliance responds to the Spring Budget

Women and girls with multiple unmet needs are facing escalating trauma and harm as a direct result of decades of under-investment in public services. The public know this, and women and girls know what is needed: early intervention from relational, cross-cutting services which provide gender- and trauma-informed support. Today’s budget was an opportunity to address some of those concerns with meaningful, long-term investment – but sadly, it is an opportunity the Chancellor missed.

Local authorities in financial crisis have been calling for urgent investment to preserve life-changing public services for years, services which have faced renewed pressure due to austerity measures and the Covid-19 pandemic. The Chancellor today focused on papering over the cracks these economic policies have caused, not on providing long-term preventative solutions. While extending the Household Support Fund for 6 months will provide some women and girls in poverty with short-term relief, measures such as this ultimately do nothing to address the root causes of poverty or the harm these women and girls experience.

Today’s Budget leaves so many specialist women and girls’ organisations facing serious and imminent threats to their sustainability. They provide vital support across housing, mental health and suicide prevention, criminal justice, domestic abuse, substance use, and youth services every day, but without long-term investment, they will not survive.

The specialist women and girls sector will, yet again, pick up the pieces of short-sighted fiscal decisions. We urge the Chancellor, and all political candidates in advance of a General Election, to seriously reflect on how they will address this crisis – which will only continue to worsen if it is continually ignored.