Do we also need to see a recovery stimulus that targets women?

Working mothers are in urgent need of help in the face of a childcare crisis,

At the start of the Covid-19 crisis, the Women and Equalities Committee launched an inquiry into the possible unequal effects of the coronavirus. At the outset, we did not know what we would uncover, but organisations like the Equality and Human Rights Commission indicated there could be challenges for those in insecure employment, many of whom would be young,

BAME or women. We were concerned about a potential increase in domestic abuse, as relationships came under strain from any prolonged lockdown.

But I am not sure any of us expected the pandemic to kill more BAME people, for men to be more likely to suffer serious health implications than women, and for young people to have their entire futures potentially blighted as schools closed for over half a term. As their exams were cancelled and the economy crashed into recession, their job prospects look decidedly bleaker than they did just six months ago.

Our original inquiry will soon split into three distinct strands, the gendered impact of Covid, the impact on BAME individuals and access to services for disabled people. Each is crucially important.

Recently, at the liaison committee, I questioned the PM about the availability of childcare, which will directly impact the ability of women to go back to work. The Government over the past 10 years has done a fantastic job of increasing female employment. Pre-pandemic, it stood at 75 per cent, a record high. But as the Institute for Fiscal Studies revealed last week, the gendered impact of Covid has seen women more likely to be furloughed than their male colleagues, and pick up the lion’s share of childcare and home schooling responsibilities, forgoing their own earning opportunities in the process. So if there has been an economically gendered impact, do we also need to see a recovery stimulus that specifically targets women?

The Chancellor has been a really bold and determined character over the past 10 weeks – he has put in place the furlough scheme for employees, the self-employed income support scheme, the business interruption loans, bounce back loans and grants administered by local government for small businesses. While I am the first to acknowledge these schemes have not helped everyone, they have gone a very, very long way indeed to supporting incomes and jobs.

He now is rumoured to be planning an emergency Budget, aimed at backing business, growing the economy and boosting skills. That is excellent news, but please can we think about the 50 per cent of the workforce who are women – rather than a specific focus on technology, how about some

The childcare sector is on its knees – and means parents simply can’t return to work

consideration of the childcare sector?

I have done a number of Zoom calls with childcare providers during lockdown, I raised their situation with the PM, I repeatedly tell the Education Secretary that it is a sector on its knees. Social distancing measures mean some settings will be forced to reduce numbers by as much as 50 per cent; that is bad news for the parents and bad news for the providers themselves.

One nursery owner contacted me to explain social distancing would see her lose half the spaces, and lead to a £1,000-a-month loss. No small business can sustain that, and as she put it, she will have to close, thus reducing the spaces available for children by 100 per cent. Parents need childcare available in order to resume their employment, as furlough schemes come to an end, and employers expect them back at work; a crisis in childcare could mean parents are simply not able to return. Grandparents are not available, either, under the social distancing guidelines.

So what is to be done? It is no good to suggest that support to the sector has been generous; their margins are tight and with fewer children able to attend, both nurseries and individual childminders can’t see what the future holds for them. And remember, not only are these businesses allowing women to return to work, they are female-led businesses, employing predominantly women. If we have any aspiration to get back to that stunning 75 per cent figure, the Chancellor could do a lot worse than to find a new way to support childcare.