The UK Government’s welfare reforms have had a disproportionate impact on women, who are twice as dependent on social security as men.

Analysis by the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission estimates that the cumulative impact of tax and welfare changes since 2010 has fallen disproportionately on women. On average, women were estimated to lose £940 per year, compared with £460 per year for men, by 2021-22. The benefit cap, and the two-child limit and its abhorrent rape clause also impact women disproportionately.

Indeed, Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said that the UK Government’s welfare system may as well have been created by

“a group of misogynists in a room.”