Whilst it’s Brexit that has dominated the headlines for months, the General Election on December 12th isn’t solely about whether we stay in the European Union or not. As the parties begin revealing their key policies ahead of publishing their manifestos in the coming weeks, read about what the Conservative party, headed up by Boris Johnson, the Labour party, headed up by Jeremy Corbyn, and the Lib Dem’s, led by Jo Swinson, are offering women, and the major policies they’ve unveiled to tackle gender equality.
Labour
45 per cent female MPs
- Labour has pledged to close the gender pay gap by 2030, creating a Worker’s Protection Agency which could fine organisations which fail to report gender pay statistics.
- The party has promised 30 hours’ free childcare per week for all two-to-four-year-olds, as well as committing to £1 billion investment in new early-years Sure Start centres. In the current system, free childcare only begins at three years, as either 15 or 30 weekly hours depending upon earnings. According to the Office for National Statistics, 28.5 per cent of mothers with a child aged 14 years and under said they had reduced their working hours because of childcare reasons. For fathers, it’s 4.8 per cent.
- The party has also pledged to increase maternity pay from the current nine months to a full year.
- At the Labour Party Conference in September, MP Dawn Butler said that the next Labour government would require all large companies to introduce a menopause workplace policy. 30 per cent of women surveyed by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development said they had taken sick leave because of menopause symptoms, with only a quarter of those feeling able to tell their manager the real reason for their absence.
- Women are also statistically hardest hit by austerity measures, which Labour has been vocal about reversing if the party comes into power.
Liberal Democrats
50 per cent female MPs, including a female leader
- The Lib Dems have pledged to put further scrutiny on companies’ gender pay gaps, forcing them to publish data on employment levels by gender (as is currently the case), as well as for BAME and LGBT staff.
- The party has also pushed for a law to end the pink tax, which sees women paying more than men for basically identical products such as razors and deodorants, just because they’re marketed differently.
- Childcare provisions are also a focus for the Lib Dems, who have promised 35 hours of free care for all two-to-four-year-olds, extended to nine-month-old children of working parents. The aim is to close the gap between the end of paid parental leave and the start of free childcare.
- The party has also said it would expand the number of refuges and rape crisis centres available, and ensure sustainable funding for specialist support services, as well as setting up a national rape crisis helpline.
- Schools would also be ordered by the Lib Dems to allow children to wear gender-neutral school uniforms, to remove the association of specific clothes with boys or girls.
Conservatives
20 per cent female MPs
- As yet, the Conservatives have not unveiled any new policies geared specifically towards women, instead choosing to focus on those introduced by recent governments. They have highlighted the introduction of the current 15 to 30 hours’ free childcare for three-and-four-year-olds, and the enforced gender pay gap reporting for larger companies, brought about in 2017.
- The party will also offer free breakfast and after-school clubs for children of parents in the armed forces, to reduce childcare pressures.
