JANE ATKINSON
Wannabe mums are among Budget’s biggest losers… they now have to think if they can afford to have a baby
The true costs of this Budget could be terrifying
HOW ironic that our first ever female Chancellor has just scuppered the dreams of so many women who want to have babies.
For that is exactly what Rachel Reeves has done.
6
6
On Monday, new figures revealed that although the amount of women of child-bearing age is at its highest ever, the number of babies being born in England and Wales is at its lowest since records began.
But just two days later, mum-of-two Rachel delivered a crippling Budget which hammers household spending and ensures the number of babies bouncing into our country will decrease even further.
It would be laughable if it wasn’t actually so tragic.
Those figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that an average of 1.44 children were born per woman of childbearing age last year, when our countries actually need 2.1 to get by efficiently.
READ MORE FROM JANE ATKINSON
You could think it really doesn’t matter — but without those new kids becoming working-age adults we will face economic issues in years to come, with a reliance on migration to prop up numbers.
The figures are dwindling for many reasons. Some women choose not to have children, others prefer to focus on their career. Others have them so late in life they can only really have one.
But one of the biggest factors is affordability. Figures from last year also showed that it costs £166,000 to raise a child to 18.
With the cost-of-living crisis, the cost of childcare and housing, is it any wonder we haven’t been popping out more?
Most read in The Sun
And now Ms Reeves and her Labour government have just made sure that the labour wards around our country will have even fewer pregnant women to deal with.
The true costs of this budget could be terrifying.
'We're all going to be worse off' Brits react to bombshell Budget - here’s what they REALLY think
Many employers will now have to make a bigger contribution to National Insurance so they will take on fewer people — that means job losses, no pay rises and less recruitment.
And for some small businesses potentially no business at all.
Fuel duty may have been frozen but bus journeys will cost more and train fares are going up.
Babies need a roof over their heads but mortgage rates are set to rise, while renters will be paying more thanks to a lack of properties and increased costs because landlords have been slapped with a stamp duty raise.
And forget about the bank of mum and dad too, because they are facing the same pressures thanks to this tax raid.
Even if they wanted to hand something down, the inheritance tax bill may make it unrealistic.
Is this really a country now where you can securely think about bouncing a couple of babies on your knee and knowing that you can actually afford to pay for them? No.
Kick in the balls
Labour has failed all those women who are desperate to be mums but simply can’t afford it. And they have given a right kick in the balls to those men who had hoped one day to become dads, too.
Yes, Labour’s injection into the NHS is needed because the thought of any mum going into hospital must be terrifying as the safety ratings in maternity units is shocking.
And yes, the £6.7billion going to the Department for Education sounds great with more money on hiring teachers, rebuilding schools and investing in breakfast clubs in England.
But there is already a lack of pupil numbers to fill schools and that could soon get much worse as the number of babies being born in this country falls even further.
And Rachel Reeves only has herself to blame.
J-Lo's jeans don't come dirt cheap
6
6
AND we all thought Jennifer Lopez could look good in a paper bag. Wrong.
She proved it by wearing a £600 pair of jeans – yes, £600 – from designer Acne that come with a “smudged and distressed” look.
Which, to you and me, means they look like they need a bloody good wash.
Keep killer in jail
ASHLEY Towning was almost four times over the legal alcohol limit, high on drugs and on his mobile phone when he ploughed into and killed 40-year-old Lijuan Wu.
Lijuan had been walking home from a shopping trip with her seven and 16-year-old daughters by her side.
She was also the primary carer for her disabled 12-year-old son.
Towning bolted from the scene and was found cowering under his parents’ dining table.
In a victim impact statement read to Lincoln Crown Court, Lijuan’s husband said: “I just want to die.
“Every night I lie awake with a broken heart.”
Towning was jailed for just ten years and eight months when the maximum sentence is life.
They should have thrown away the key.
Tour? Must B joking
6
IF ever there was someone who should want the Spice Girls to reunite, it is me.
I became obsessed with them after becoming a “Spice Girls correspondent” back in the day.
I even moved into a flat simply because it was in Spice Court and can still, nearly two decades on, remember the words to the majority of their songs.
But when Mel B branded her bandmates “d**kheads” for refusing to reunite for a blockbuster 30th anniversary tour, I thought she was the idiot.
She says she has been chucked out of their WhatsApp chat for bombarding them with texts about a tour.
I don’t blame them.
Unlike her, they don’t need the cash and Emma can no longer be “Baby”, Victoria would look bloody stupid pulling that V sign, and getting Geri out of her all-white outfits into a Union Jack number might be a struggle.
The Spice Girls were – they are – brilliant.
But do they need to prance around on stage to prove it?
No. As the song goes, stop right now, thank you very much!
Leave it out
WHAT an entitled idiot Luke Worley is.
He was a store boss for EE but was sacked for taking unauthorised leave to go on Davina McCall’s Language Of Love dating series.
Instead of taking it on the chin, he tried to claim unfair dismissal.
Thankfully TV-obsessed Luke, who has also appeared on reality show Married At First Sight, lost his bizarre claim.
What Luke really needs now is a reality check and not another reality show.
Life of Riley
6
MANY nepo babies are determined to claim that they’ve made their own way without a single helping hand from their famous family.
But Elvis’s granddaughter isn’t one of them.
Riley Keough says she totally acknowledges that is where she came from, adding: “I’m not an idiot! I’m aware of privilege in an acute way.”
How refreshing.
IT is that wonderful time of the year when the Christmas ads are starting to arrive.
Posh Nigella Lawson has – oddly – signed up for down-to-earth bakery Greggs.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
But the TV cook has, unsurprisingly, only agreed to plug its festive flatbread and Christmas lunch baguette, and has turned her nose up at its infamous sausage rolls.
Shame. Imagine all the innuendos.
Topics