Sarah Champion: Today the Tories must admit they have forced women and the low paid to bear the brunt of austerity

In every single budget and autumn statement under this Conservative government, women have lost out.

As of the last budget, a staggering 86 per cent of net savings generated for the Treasury through tax and benefit changes since 2010 had come from women. This was up from 81 per cent at the Autumn Statement 2015.

Today, as Philip Hammond delivers this year’s mini-budget, we wait with bated breath – what will the figure be this time? 87 per cent? 90 per cent? 100 per cent per cent?

When will the government face up to facts and realise that they cannot carry on this way, making women and people from lower incomes bear the overwhelming brunt of their austerity agenda.

Despite numerous calls from Labour for ministers to undertake a proper cumulative gender impact analysis of their policies on women and other protected groups, the Tories have refused, voting against our motions and frustrating the work of the women and equalities select committee when questioned about this issue.

It is not as though the government doesn’t understand how to conduct a proper analysis of their policies on women – the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Women’s Budget Group, among others, have clearly outlined how this process can be done.

The government’s attitude to the impact of their policies on women has shifted from a blithering dismissiveness to wilful and deliberate evasion.

The women and equalities select committee last week published its report into how the government conducted its equalities analysis during the Autumn Statement 2015 and the Spending Review. The most shocking element of this report is the repeated and deliberate obstruction from the Treasury in co-operating with the committee.

Firstly, the previous chancellor point blank refused to send a minister to give evidence to the committee or appear himself on the grounds that individual departments are responsible for the equalities impacts of their own policies.

Following this the committee then wrote to 16 government departments asking them to “send the Committee a copy of your department’s assessment of the high-level equality impacts of key areas of spending for the 2015 Spending Review”.

At the same time the committee wrote to the Treasury asking for copies of all the equality impact assessments they had made in reference to the Spending Review.

Despite being asked, the Treasury declined to share these assessments with the committee.

Not only is this unwillingness to cooperate with the women and equalities select committee hugely disrespectful, but it leaves a question mark over whether the government is actually in compliance with the 2010 Equality Act, first introduced by Labour.

The Treasury has a clear legal obligation to have due regard to the impact of its policies on equality but this simply isn’t being followed by the Tories in any meaningful way.

Is this be because a full and thorough assessment would show that it is the poorest households and women who have been hit hardest by changes since 2010? Moreover, they will be hit harder still by policies planned by the government?

Analysis published by the Women’s Budget Group in March found that single lone parents and single pensioners will see a 20 per cent decline in their living standard by 2020 compared to if policies had remained as they were prior to the coalition taking office.

How long can this government stick their fingers in their ears about the devastating and disproportionate impact that their policies are having on women? How long can they continue to defy the women and equalities select committee? How long can they continue to duck and dive measures set out in law under the Equality Act?

With my Labour colleagues, I will be watching very closely during the Autumn statement – and we will be commissioning our own analysis to look through the detail of announcements and how these will affect women.

It is shameful that the government don’t just get on with the job and produce this analysis and feed it into their policy thinking in the first place.

The challenge to Hammond and Therersa May today must be for them to make a clear break with the shady and neglectful attitude towards equalities demonstrated by their predecessors. They could start with:

• Putting their warm words on equality into action and create an autumn statement that works to empower women economically rather than burden them with the brunt of cuts
• Urgently publishing a full gender impact analysis of their policies
• Providing data and co-operation to the women and equalities select committee and stop treating their inquiries with contempt

This Autumn Statement will be the first with May as prime minister and the first since the EU referendum. We will wait to see whether May’s warm words on the steps of Downing Street will translate to greater economic prosperity and fairness for women and protected groups.