Help Mums Not Millionaires
Posted by Kate Green, MP for Stretford and Urmston, at 09:07, Fri 8 March 2013:
By happy coincidence, International Women’s day and Mother’s day both fall this weekend. IWD is on Friday 8 March, and surely EVERYBODY is remembering it’s Mother’s day on Sunday!
I’ll be marking both occasions. For one week starting on International Women’s day, I am delighted to be hosting the exhibition in Parliament of an absolutely fabulous portrait of suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst, by Manchester artist Charlotte Newson.
Some of you may already have seen the portrait, Women Like You. It’s been on display at Manchester Art Gallery and at Manchester High School for Girls, among other places.
But I can’t think of a more appropriate place for it to be on display than in the Parliament for which the suffragettes fought so hard for women to get the vote.
Things have moved on a long way since the campaign for the women’s vote a century ago. But still, women make up only 146 out of 650 MPs. 86 of those are Labour MPs – more than all the other parties put together. The UK comes a measly 65th out of 190 countries in terms of the proportion of women in Parliament.
It’s important that MPs are properly representative of the country as a whole. We’ve still got a long way to go to elect more women, disabled, BAME, lesbian and gay MPs for example – all under-represented in Parliament compared to the whole population.
There are some good initiatives, like a fund to help disabled candidates meet the extra costs they face, and changes to the hours Parliament sits in order to be a bit more family-friendly.
But we need to redouble our efforts.
Labour is marking Mother’s Day with our “Help Mums Not Millionaires” campaign.
New mums face a “mummy tax” of £180 by 2015 - because the government’s uprating statutory maternity pay by just 1% for the next 3 years – way below inflation.
That’s on top of freezes and cuts to benefits and tax credits, including cuts to help with childcare costs, the axing of the health in pregnancy grant, and the restriction of the Sure Start maternity grant.
Low paid mums stand to be £1800 worse off in baby’s first year, but millionaires will get a tax cut of £100,000 – coming into effect on the same day.
We’re sending a message to David Cameron that his policies are totally unfair. On Sunday, a giant Mother’s day card will be presented at Downing Street – and you can add your signature online at www.labour.org.uk/mumsnotmillionaires
And we’ll be out in Urmston on Saturday, talking to mums – and dads, and aunties and uncles, and grandmas and grandpas, in fact to everyone – about the campaign.
In these tough times, the government should be helping new mums with the support they need, not making life even harder for them.
Kate Green
Member of Parliament for Stretford and Urmston
Shadow Minister for Equalities
tel: 0161 749 9120 (constituency); 020 7219 7162 (Westminster)
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Posted by Mr Clive Gibson, 11:15, Fri 8 March 2013: (Is this post abusive?) #
I reject the absurd anti-democratic and demeaning idea that parliament can only be 'representative' if it has exactly the same proportions regarding gender, sexual orientation etc. as the general population. It is sad that an MP has so little grasp of the most basic principles of democracy, we don't choose our representive on the basis of gender, race or physical characteristics, but on the basis of the political views they hold! No doubt Kate would like a system of 'quotas', in that case why bother with 'elections' at all?