Your commercial news round-up: abortion, budget, pay, Clare's Law

Reading time: three minutes

Tomorrow marks International Women’s Day – a day to celebrate and pay homage to the women in your life and give focus to issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence and abuse against women. With this in mind, we’ve collected some recent important stories and looked at how they impact women.

• Starting with the good news, France has become the first country in the world to make abortion a constitutional right. This landmark decision was voted in 780-72 and saw a standing ovation in parliament when the result of the vote was announced. This amendment to the country’s 1958 constitution is the first amendment since 2008 and will provide women with a “guaranteed freedom” to abort. This constitutional change has been prompted by developments in the US, after the right to an abortion was removed by the Supreme Court in 2022. President Emmanuel Macron said the amendment sends a “universal message”.  Shortly after the vote, Paris’ Eiffel Tower was lit in celebration with the words: “#MyBodyMyChoice.”
   
• On Wednesday 6 March, Jeremy Hunt announced the UK’s spring budget and it’s caused quite the stir. Key points from the budget include:
  • a 2p cut to national insurance (worth £450 a year to people on a full-time wage of £35,000);
  • fuel duty will remain frozen until 2025, as will the price of a pint;
  • there’ll be a new tax on vapes from 2026; and
  • the threshold for those eligible for child benefits will rise from £50,000 to £60,000.

But are these changes meaningful? Leader of the Green Party, Carla Denyer, doesn’t think so and accused the chancellor of “attempting to bribe the electorate through tax cuts”, adding that “people know a con when they see one”. In terms of the budget’s impact on women, the Women’s Budget Group (WBD) has found that tax giveaways will disproportionately benefit men. The organisation states: “Single men will gain on average close to £500 more a year than lone mothers.” Director of WBD, Mary-Ann Stephenson said: “Yet again the chancellor has announced tax giveaways that benefit men over women and benefit the better off rather than those most in need.”

• Continuing with the monetary theme, our next story looks at pay stagnation in the UK. According to the Resolution Foundation (RF), the UK is facing nearly 20 years of lost pay growth, which, after taking into account inflation, means the average UK worker wage won’t match its 2008 level until 2026. According to the RF, if wages had continued to grow as they were before the 2008 financial crash the average worker would be £14,000 better off. The RF also analysed the chancellor's budget announcement finding that “more than three-quarters of the personal tax cuts announced in Wednesday's budget go to the richest half of households”. Adding that “taxpayers earning below £26,000 will lose out”. This is particularly relevant to women as on average women in the UK earn £25,532, which is £9,100 less than the average man and 14.3% lower than the median UK salary.
   
• Our final story brings us to a difficult topic: violence against women. For the past nine years, Labour MP Jess Philips read the names of the women who've been murdered by men in an address to parliament. The former shadow minister’s act comes as the news of Clare’s Law continues to make headlines. Clare’s Law, otherwise known as the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme, gives people the right to ask the police whether their partner has a history of abuse. Forces are expected to respond to such inquiries within 28 days; however, a recent BBC investigation has found that some people have been waiting up to 100. In the year 2022/23 such requests have risen to 45,344, a rise of 300% in the past five years. Speaking on violence against women Philipps said: “I’m tired that women’s safety matters so much less in this place than small boats. I’m tired of fighting for systematic change and being given table scraps.”

Check the News every Thursday for this weekly commercial news round-up. Or prefer to listen to your commercial news? Why not check out our Commercial Connect podcast?             

Follow LawCareers.Net on X, LinkedIn, and Instagram for regular business news updates.