Budget faces legal fight on issue of equality

A GROUNDBREAKING legal case has been launched challenging the coalition government's emergency Budget on equality grounds, claiming the government measures discriminate against women.

The Fawcett Society have filed papers with the High Court seeking a Judicial Review of the austerity package. The society argue that the government should have assessed whether its Budget proposals would increase or reduce inequality between women and men.

They claim that the Treasury have not provided any evidence that these assessments took place. The society argued that women would be hit far harder than men as a result of the Budget.

Ceri Goddard, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, explained: "Successive governments have failed to give enough consideration to how their policies will impact on equality between men and women, but this Budget shows a whole new level of disregard for the importance of equality law and everyday women's lives.

"The blatant unfairness and the sheer scale of the impact this Budget could have on women have left us little choice but to resort to the courts for action.

"In times of economic crisis it becomes more not less important to consider women's basic rights, and observe the laws put there to safeguard them.

"We know action is needed to cut the deficit, but such critical decisions - especially such eye-watering cuts to public spending - should not have been made without considering the impact on women. It's ironic that a Budget that in many other ways was the most transparent for decades seems to have failed to consider and publish its impact on half the population."

She added: "Women already earn less, own less, and have less control over their finances than men, yet some 5.8 billion of the 8bn of cuts contained in the Budget will be taken from women."