Joe Levenson, Director of Communications and Campaigns at Young Women’s Trust said:
Young women have been hit hard in the last year, but today’s Queen’s Speech shows little in the way of the concrete action needed from the government to fulfil their promise to ‘build back better’ from the pandemic.
Whilst the plans to boost adult education and training are welcome, far more needs to be done to ensure training schemes and apprenticeships are accessible and affordable for all. The Government also needs to commit to a permanent uplift to universal credit, to help support the 1.5 million young women who have lost income since the pandemic started.
The lack of detail on social care reform is also deeply concerning given the pledges in previous years. Without a radical overhaul of both social care and early years education, young women will continue to pick up the pieces of the present system as unpaid and low paid carers.
We are also deeply concerned that the introduction of voter ID threatens to unnecessarily put those furthest from power at further disadvantage, making it even harder for young women to get their voices heard.
If the government is serious about ensuring no young woman is left behind it needs to put them at the heart of its agenda for the coming year. At Young Women’s Trust we stand ready to help make this happen, including by enabling politicians to speak directly to young women struggling to live on low or no pay, who desperately need government to hear their voice, engage with them and act in their interests.
