‘Mummy Tax’ hitting businesses hard as well as families

Last Sunday was Mother’s Day, and the eyes of families across the country were on 10 Downing Street as David Cameron was given a ‘mother’s day card’ by mums, dads and children calling on him to ‘help mums not millionaires’.

This call comes just a few weeks before 6 April, also known as Tory Millionaires Day, when plans for a real terms cut in maternity pay – a £180 ‘Mummy Tax’ – are to come into force, on the same day that £100,000 will be slashed from the tax bill of millionaires. Despite repeated warnings from Labour, the Fawcett Society, other think thanks and the experience of women across the country that the Tory Government is disproportionately impacting women’s incomes and lives, they keep hitting women, and in particular mothers, hardest – whilst helping the richest in our society.

On International Women’s Day I took the ‘mums not millionaires’ campaign and petition to Feltham and Heston. The response that I got at the school gate and street stall from local mums, dads and grandparents was incredible, and one that the Government should take note of before the budget on Wednesday. On a day that is supposed to be a celebration of female achievements, I heard anger and disappointment with the Government for turning back the clock on female progress with the ‘Mummy Tax’ – another blow to the pockets and lives of working women.

While David Cameron promised he would lead the most family-friendly Government ever, reality shows he is leaving new mums stranded. New mums are already amongst the hardest hit by the coalition’s tax and benefit changes. On top of the real terms cuts to child benefit and tax credit changes faced by all parents – including child benefit freezes, reductions in support for childcare and frozen tax credits – new mums have already faced the scrapping of the Health in Pregnancy Grant; the restriction of the Sure Start Maternity Grant; and the scrapping of the baby addition to the Child Tax Credit. Figures compiled by the House of Commons Library have now confirmed that low paid new mums will lose £1,300 during pregnancy and the baby’s first year from cuts to pregnancy support, tax credits and real terms cuts to maternity pay. They are also losing a further £422 from cuts to child benefit over the same period.

It is no coincidence that this, the biggest attack of women for a generation, is happening under a Government that does not understand women’s lives, and does not have women’s voices strongly at its heart, with just 4 women out of a cabinet of 25.

This time it is not only new mums and families who are hit hard with the ‘Mummy Tax’ however, but new research shows that businesses as well as working women are set to lose out.

According to new research compiled by the House of Commons Library, employers offering occupational maternity schemes – who are entitled to reimburse 92% of statutory maternity pay – could lose £170 a year by 2015 following the real terms cut to statutory maternity pay. We already know that this Government is failing women, but now we know they are failing businesses too, putting extra costs on entrepreneurs during these tough times. It is wrong that families and businesses are paying the price of the coalition’s failed economic policies.

Time and again mothers and families have been disproportionately hit by this Government, and from April 6, Tory Millionaire’s Day, the purses of mums across the country will be raided once again to try and get the deficit down – a task which the Government is failing through no coherent plan for jobs and growth. This time however businesses will also be asked to foot the bill of a failing, out of touch Government. Just as David Cameron has no idea what it is like for real people trying to juggle a family budget, now we know he has no idea what it is like to be a small business owner trying to keep afloat during these tough times.

Seema Malhotra is the Labour MP for Feltham & Heston