Agenda Alliance responds to the Autumn Budget 2025

On 26 November 2025, Rachel Reeves MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer, presented her Autumn Budget statement. Our full response:

The two-child benefit cap

We know how hard the cost-of-living crisis and prolonged austerity measures have hit women and girls across the country, particularly those with multiple unmet needs. We know that the two-child benefit cap disadvantaged lower income households, with those most impacted usually being women and their children. Scrapping the two-child limit will lift 250,000 children out of poverty, and reduce poverty for 850,000 children. (1) For this reason, we strongly welcome the Government’s announcement of its intention to end the two-child benefit cap. Any initiative to lift women and their children out of poverty represents a welcome opportunity to challenge the multiple unmet needs that are marginalising women and girls.

Neighbourhood Health Centres

The Chancellor has committed to invest in the NHS and infrastructure, through her announced plans to establish 250 new Neighbourhood Health Centres across England - of which 120 will be operational by 2030. We hope to see improved access to primary mental health care, with a particular focus on the mental health of women and girls. Women and girls are at significantly higher risk for multiple mental health problems, including anxiety, depression, and eating disorders. (2) The lack of appropriate and timely support for mental health issues contributes to women with unmet mental health needs coming into contact with the criminal justice system – notably, 80% of young women in custody report having mental health problems. (3) Agenda Alliance has long argued that all services, including health services, must take into account young women’s life experiences and work to become age-, gender-, trauma-, and culturally responsive. Considering this, we urge the government to apply a gendered lens in the design of these Neighbourhood Health Centres, and to consult women and girls and the organisations that work with them in their design and delivery.

Schools White Paper

The government announced impending plans for reform of special educational needs provision through the delivery of a Schools White Paper early next year. We know that neurodivergent girls face unique challenges, particularly in receiving diagnoses and access to support, (4) which can affect how they engage with education, leading to school exclusions. We hope that the Schools White Paper engages with the unique experience of girls with special educational needs, with a view to tackling the drastic increase of school exclusions for girls, particularly racially minoritised girls who are disproportionately impacted by exclusions. Agenda Alliance advocates for:

• Schools to adopt improved behavioural policies, addressing how gender and racial stereotypes (such as ‘adultification’) are disproportionately impacting girls.
• All specialist staff working with children who have been or are at risk of exclusion to be trained to deliver culturally-, gender-, age-, and trauma- responsive support.
• Any responses to high rates of absenteeism to avoid unnecessarily punitive approaches, and instead work to address the root causes of girls’ absence from school. They should be co-produced with young women and the specialist organisations that support them.

Devolution

The Chancellor announced measures to devolve £13bn of funding for seven Mayoral Strategic Authorities, with a view to ‘empower mayors with local control over a single flexible pot for growth and public services priorities.’ With the recent announcement of scrapping Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) by 2028, and moves towards increased local powers, it is clear that there will be greater local autonomy regarding funding and resource allocation for community-based services – and we hope this will include services working for women and girls affected by crime, violence and abuse, and tackling multiple unmet needs.

Within our Young Women’s Justice Project, we have been engaging with PCCs in several areas across England. Our hope is that the good practice that has been seen at the local level within particular PCC areas will not be lost amidst the reshuffle and reallocation of resources that comes with shifts in governmental structures - and we look forward to further engaging with local authority leaders, combined authorities, and Mayors to ensure that the needs of women and girls remain firmly on the agenda when making the shift to further devolution., which we know delivers impact, as demonstrated through our work with Greater Manchester Combined Authority on child removal and intersecting needs, focusing on how local services can better support women and their children through gender, age, trauma and race-informed approaches to tackle multiple unmet needs.

Looking forward

There are many positive aspects to the Autumn Budget, and we are particularly glad to finally see the two-child limit lifted. Nevertheless, whether other provisions will have a positive impact on the lives of women and girls experiencing multiple disadvantage remains to be seen. For an approach that truly centres the needs of women and girls and commits to addressing their experiences of poverty, mental ill health, trauma, abuse, and marginalisation, there must be a concerted effort to engage with women and girls and the dynamic voluntary sector that supports them.