Written evidence from Northern Ireland Women’s European Platform [UCW0056]

Introduction

Universal Credit has had a significant impact on the lives of families across the UK. While there has been an impact on all claimants, women have been hardest hit by the changes in the tax and benefits system; House of Commons Library data show that 86% of savings have been from spending on women.[1] Northern Ireland Women’s European Platform welcomes this Inquiry and the opportunity to contribute evidence.

Northern Ireland Women’s European Platform (hereafter NIWEP) is a membership organisation working to ensure the voice of women in Northern Ireland is heard at the national and international level. We work with our members and partners to collate the views and evidence of women, and represent Northern Ireland at the UN as well as at the European Women’s Lobby. Our core role is to coordinate the response to international human rights processes, in particular the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW); NIWEP was among the organisations that coordinated a UK wide civil society contribution to the examination of the UK under CEDAW in 2019. At the local level, our work focuses on sharing information and building capacity on international human rights instruments and mechanisms for gender equality, in order to support advocacy for gender equality. We also work with policy makers to inform gender sensitive policy making.

NIWEP believes that meaningful implementation of international human rights instruments ratified by the UK means they need to form a broad contextual framework for domestic policy. This response is highlighting obligations under such a framework.

NIWEP also endorses the submission made by the Women’s Regional Consortium in Northern Ireland, which highlights first hand experience and evidence from women claiming Universal Credit in Northern Ireland.

Key messages

NIWEP would like to highlight Articles 11 and 13 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which introduce an obligation on State Parties to the Convention to eliminate discrimination against women in relation to social protection and employment related social security. CEDAW is one of the core human rights treaties that form part of the international human rights framework, and was ratified by the UK in 1986. The UK therefore has obligations under this international framework, and is examined under CEDAW on a rolling four year basis.

In its Concluding Observations on the 8th periodic report of the UK[2] in 2019, the CEDAW Committee reiterated concern from its previous Concluding Observations in 2013[3] that austerity has had a disproportionate impact on women, and recommended that the State Party undertake a comprehensive assessment of the impact of austerity on women, and take urgent measures to mitigate and remedy negative consequences. NIWEP would like to draw the Committee’s attention specifically to this recommendation, as a basis for addressing the five week wait.

The CEDAW Committee was building on evidence particularly from civil society, which included shadow reports from a wide range of organisations. This included a research finding noting that ‘women are shouldering cuts to social security that are directly causing poverty, homelessness, physical insecurity and fatality[4]’. This finding was quoted in a four nations shadow report to the CEDAW examination in 2019[5], compiled by NIWEP and sister organisations Engender in Scotland, Women’s Equality Network Wales and Women’s Resource Centre (WRC) in England. This shadow report, as well as the shadow report by NIWEP focused on Northern Ireland[6], both highlighted the impact austerity has had on women across the UK. The reports highlighted rising female poverty as well as the rising feminisation of poverty, while underlining the link between maternal and child poverty. Both are associated with significant long term impacts, in the case of child poverty often lifelong impacts in areas from health and wellbeing to educational attainment and intergenerational poverty. They called for stronger social protection for women, and specifically for the removal of the two child cap within Universal Credit, while highlighting the difficulties women face in paying for childcare particularly following welfare reforms. 

Women in Northern Ireland are more likely to rely on social security than women elsewhere in the UK, and are also more likely to have three or more children; some factors related to this include a weaker labour market, a high proportion of women with adult care responsibilities and a high proportion of women working in part time, precarious and low paid jobs.[7] The latter highlight key reasons why the five week wait for the first Universal Credit payment has caused many women the most profound difficulties, with little or no money to manage the transition phase. The mental and social health impacts of this are significant, and it is likely that major savings can be made if the five week wait is addressed, in the short term but above all in the long term, as fewer women and households face the stress associated with acute financial distress. NIWEP would urge the Committee to take action on the five week wait, and would in particular welcome action on the advance payment, which currently takes the form of a loan. In addition, consideration could be given to scrapping the five week wait at least for those claimants who demonstrate an acute need for support, if not scrapping it completely.

A key issue to be considered is that many households have no income at the point of initiating the Universal Credit application. Therefore, the wait is often longer than five weeks, and does not reflect the intended pattern of a monthly wage paid in arrears.

April 2020