UNDER the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government, cuts to pay, benefits and public services had a terrible effect on our society.

Austerity hits women hardest, because they get lower wages to begin with, take on more caring responsibilities within the family, and are more likely to interact with public services — both for themselves and for other family members.

If I take one example, the household benefit cap introduced by the Tories limits social security not on the basis of assessing need, but by an arbitrary limit that was imposed by Tory ministers. And the impact of that is nearly nine times greater on women than men — mostly because lone parents are disproportionately women.

So when the current Chancellor, Britain’s first female chancellor, says she will plough ahead with at least £3 billion of welfare cuts it is women who will bear the brunt of that — and who will disproportionately be sent deeper into poverty or even destitution.

You cannot reduce child poverty, without tackling the poverty of low-paid women, lone parents and disabled women who are the mothers of those children in poverty.

The significant 6.7 per cent increase in the minimum wage this April will be welcome, boosting it to £12.21 per hour, but that falls well short of the real living wage that workers need in order to reach a decent standard of living.

Within the Civil Service, there are thousands of workers whose pay will have to increase in April to keep them above the minimum wage. That includes both civil servants and many of our members working on outsourced contracts — as caterers, cleaners and security guards.

This year the government has said that its public-sector pay remit will be 2.8 per cent, but inflation is already 3.0 per cent and is forecast to rise further.

At the same time in April, council tax bills are going up by 5 per cent in most areas, and energy bills will rise by 6.4 per cent. In recent weeks, we’ve had water bills increase by up to 47 per cent and rail fares by 4.6 per cent. In the last year, landlords hiked rents by 7 per cent across England and Wales.

The cost-of-living crisis is far from over. And the way to address that is not for the government to tighten its belt and cut public services.

If it does, that will have a disproportionate impact on women. We know that cuts to social care have meant many women working fewer hours to help look after elderly relatives.

Many of our members have taken on hybrid working — increasing the time spent working from home. This flexibility disproportionately benefits women, who are often the ones juggling the lion’s share of caring responsibilities. It enables them to fit work around caring commitments.

Some workers, who have been hit by more than a decade of pay freezes, pay caps and real-terms pay cuts, have welcomed homeworking as it also saves money on the daily commute.

So when the government arbitrarily orders our members back into the office, it is disproportionately impacting low-paid workers with caring responsibilities: mostly women.

It used to be in the Civil Service, many decades ago, that women had to give up their jobs if they got married. It was the Attlee government that removed that embargo in 1946.

The current government could learn something from that government about building council housing, bringing industry into public ownership and redistributive taxation.

That post-war Labour government broke with Tory orthodoxy. When this Labour government was elected last year on a slogan of “Change,” many people would have thought that meant no more attacking people on benefits, a boost in pay and an end to austerity.

Unfortunately, it seems this government is reaching for the same solutions — and they will have the same devastating outcomes on our society, disproportionately impacting women.

In PCS, we see the impact that the cuts to the courts service, and wider criminal justice system, are having on women. Five years ago the End Violence Against Women coalition reported that we are seeing “the effective decriminalisation of rape” — as prosecution rates have fallen so low — and little has changed since.

Added to that, the backlogs in the courts mean huge delays and cases collapsing before justice is done.

As the first woman general secretary of the PCS union, it is my duty to fight hard to protect my membership — the jobs, pay and working conditions — of our mostly female Civil Service workforce.

But I also know that it’s our duty to stand up for public services on which communities rely. Our members deliver essential services day in and day out.

The better we do as a trade union movement in boosting pay and expanding public services, the more we achieve for women’s rights and equality.