MPs are calling for more women to be appointed to the Cabinet, claiming the lack of diversity among ministers has led to the neglect of the female population during Covid-19. 

Writing in the Morning Star for International Women’s Day, Leicester East MP Claudia Webbe said the Chancellor’s Budget “does not deliver for women.”

She writes that the 109-page document only contains three reference to women — and two regard football. 

“Considering just 21 per cent of the current Cabinet are women — the lowest proportion for decades — this should not come as a surprise,” she says. 

“The neglect of women by this government is even less surprising when we recall Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s long history of sexist comments, including … encouraging bosses to pat secretaries ‘on the bottom and send her on her way’.”

“We need women leaders with the strength and courage to recognise that our responsibility is not to mediate an unjust system but to transform it.”

Addressing the TUC women’s conference on Friday, shadow equalities and women’s secretary Marsha de Cordova accused the government of having “repeatedly, consistently and continuously ignored the realities of gender inequality across our society.”

The Labour MP accused Chancellor Rishi Sunak of discriminating against young mothers in his income-support scheme and pointed to the disparities in investment promises between male and female-dominated sectors.  

“Yet at no point has this government stopped to review the impact,” she said. 

Tory ex-minister Caroline Nokes said today that there have been “glaring omissions” in areas affecting women during the pandemic, citing problems with the childcare sector. 

“We need government ministers in the Cabinet to look at things through a lens that includes women,” she said. “We are 51 per cent of the electorate — we cannot be forgotten.”