A guide to Jeremy Hunt’s autumn budget and what it could mean for you

Hunt’s announcement today that he won’t change plans to cap public sector pay increases by 2% will therefore be hard to hear for the 77% of NHS workers and 75% of teachers who are women. 

To teaching staff especially, he said, “Thank you for your brilliant work; we need it to continue”, but with inflation at 10% and a maximum pay rise of 2%, those very same teachers are effectively receiving an 8% pay cut next year. So much for thank you.

Is he fixing the childcare sector?

Anyone with children will tell you that the childcare system in the UK is in crisis. High costs and understaffing mean some parents simply cannot find care for their kids. Laura Pomfret from Financielle tells GLAMOUR that the knock-on effect of this is that “There is so much blocking aspiring women from wanting to earn more and close the gaps in gender finances.” Many of the Financielle community have told her, “I want to be able to work and bring money in, but no investment in childcare means I can’t.”

Jeremy Hunt recognised this, saying he wanted to decrease the number of “economically inactive” people, who are more likely to be women and fix problems “holding back workforce participation.”

 Despite this, the Chancellor was “just silent” on the issue today, and there was a “massive omission of investment in childcare”, according to Pomfret. Pregnant Then Screwed, an organisation campaigning for better childcare, said children under five had been “completely ignored” in the Chancellor’s announcements. They added that increasing the living wage without increasing funding for childcare could actually make the crisis worse. 

Will Hunt help me get on the housing ladder or start a business?

Hunt confirmed he will freeze stamp duty, the tax paid when you buy a house, until March 2025. Laura Pomfret says this is good news for women “with property ambitions” but not a total “slam dunk and actually sets a ticking time bomb” for them to buy. She says stamp duty is only “part of the picture” for those trying to buy, and because they are judged on money management “, when prices go up, you’re screwed!” 

She also pointed out that freezing stamp duty could increase demand for housing, therefore increasing prices and “without a commitment to build houses as well”, the gender housing gap will continue.

Finally, Hunt also said he wanted to make the UK “the world’s next silicon valley”, setting out a series of measures to support entrepreneurship. But in 2022, a report found that only 17% of active companies are led by women, and they only attracted less than 12% of investment made in UK businesses in 2022. Without action to tackle these inequalities, women will only reap small benefits of investment in entrepreneurship.

It’s so often what politicians don’t say than what they do that can tell us all we need to know about their economic priorities. 

With no announcements on childcare or funding to end violence against women and girls today, it’s clear the new Chancellor hasn’t picked up any new tricks about women’s economic priorities.