Fifty-five organisations join Agenda Alliance to demand a Secretary of State for Women and Girls
Today, 55 co-signatories working across the women and girls’, criminal justice, mental health, and youth work sectors, including Barrow Cadbury Trust, are calling SOS on the crisis facing women and girls across Britain.
Agenda Alliance has written to the leaders of the four main political parties, to ask that whoever forms the next government creates a stand alone Secretary of State for Women and Girls in their Cabinet.
The letter – sent to Sir Keir Starmer (Labour), Rishi Sunak (Conservatives), Sir Ed Davey (Liberal Democrats) and Carla Denyer/Adrian Ramsey (Greens) is in full below:
“Policymakers need a kick up the butt. They need to do something, and they need to do it fast otherwise there are going to be so many more disadvantaged women; more suicides, homelessness, child removal. It needs acting on and it needs acting on fast.”
Nici, member of Agenda Alliance’s Women’s Advisory Network
“We are writing from Agenda Alliance, a coalition of over 100 member organisations working to make a difference to the lives of women and girls at the sharpest end of inequality. Our Alliance includes large national bodies and smaller, specialist organisations, working in collaboration to influence public policy and improve the response to women and girls experiencing multiple unmet needs. As the 4 July General Election approaches, we are writing to ask you to commit to a central ask to improve the lives of women and girls. We want the next government to create a dedicated Secretary of State for Women and Girls, matching the seriousness of women and girls’ needs with serious political resource.
There is a strong case for ensuring women and girls are represented at the highest levels of politics – especially women and girls experiencing multiple disadvantage. Multiple unmet needs are often interconnected, complex and gender-specific. They may include contact with the criminal justice system, poverty, using substances to cope, having no recourse to public funds and having no safe place to call home. For many women and girls these challenges are underpinned by extensive experience of abuse and violence throughout their lives. However, single issue policy responses which try and address these problems one at a time ignore the connections between them, causing these problems to escalate.
Far too often, women experiencing disadvantage and misogyny are stigmatised, labelled as just ‘victims’; ‘criminals’; ‘bad mothers’, ‘addicts’, ‘poor’ or ‘useless’. These labels stick, and they ignore the fact that women and girls experiencing multiple unmet needs are whole individuals, who are hopeful, inspiring, joyful, aspirational and caring.
Early intervention from relational, cross-cutting services which provide gender-, age-, culture- and trauma-responsive support is critical – but without senior political backing, effective, gendered prevention won’t have a lasting transformative impact. Political focus on the issues women and girls face has been diluted for too long: since the inception of these roles, ministers assigned to support women and girls have only had a position in Cabinet because they also hold other full-time government roles, such as Home Secretary; Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport; or Secretary of State for Business and Trade. Responsibility for women and girls facing the greatest disadvantage shouldn’t be a bolt on to other more senior roles.
We all want society to be safer and more functional – polling tells us that the majority of Britons, whoever they vote for, think public services are in a very bad state. A Secretary of State for Women and Girls would work across Government at the most senior levels to reshape public services and embed a preventative approach. They should draw together healthcare, education, housing, violence against women and girls and justice policy to deliver lasting change which addresses how women and girls’ problems are often multiple and interconnected. Primarily, we believe that a Secretary of State for Women and Girls should:
– Centre prioritisation and prevention. A cross-cutting, Cabinet level women and girls’ representative will work across government departments to embed early intervention and hold them accountable for ensuring that all policy responds to gender, age, culture and trauma as a matter of course.
– Share their power. Women and girls with lived experience have the answers to so many persistent policy problems – but they are so rarely included. This role should hold a core focus on designing future solutions alongside women and girls with lived experience, from consultation to legislation, service delivery to service evaluation.
– Champion the sector. After decades of declining investment in vital services, women and girls need high level political advocacy to bring departments together and address the distinct issues the specialist sector supporting them faces. We need funding models which embed full-cost recovery, articulate the cost-savings of prevention, and provide ring-fenced resource for specialist and by-and-for organisations.
We are attaching to this letter detailed policy recommendations which set out our ambitions for what a senior political focus on women and girls could achieve. If we are bold enough to address gendered multiple disadvantage with fresh eyes, the returns will be huge. The 55 organisations who are signatories to this letter are urging you to pledge your support, and call for dedicated political focus on women and girls now.
We would welcome the opportunity to meet you or a member of your team and discuss this manifesto ask further; do not hesitate to get in touch with our Policy and Public Affairs Officer Tara on [email protected] to arrange a meeting.
Yours faithfully,
Indy Cross
Chief Executive of Agenda Alliance
