UK budget to allocate £15 million to tackle misogyny

A pledge ahead of the first budget

Chancellor John Healey has pledged £15 million for a “misogyny prevention fund” (misogyny prevention fund), which is expected to be officially confirmed in the budget. According to BBC News, the money will be provided over three years for measures such as mentoring for young people, workplace training and awareness campaigns aimed at making women and girls safer. Speaking ahead of his first budget, Healey said: “Every woman and girl deserves to feel safe, respected and able to fulfil her ambitions — at school, at work and in her communities.” He added that the funds will go towards “practical action to tackle misogyny head-on” and expressed hope that the fund will attract additional financing from businesses and philanthropists to expand its reach.

Link to the national taskforce

The fund is intended to support the work of the national taskforce on tackling misogyny, set up in September under the chairmanship of Minister for Women and Equalities Bridget Phillipson. At the taskforce’s launch, the government said it must ensure that public policy is “shaped by those most affected by misogyny”, and that its first meeting would focus on young people; attention would later shift to workplaces, digital spaces and social cohesion. Phillipson herself said that everyday manifestations of misogyny, including sexist abuse and discrimination at work, “have no place in modern Britain”, calling the funding “a critical step” towards “sending misogyny to the history books, where it belongs”.

Statistics and opposition criticism

According to Office for National Statistics figures published in October, in England and Wales in the year to March 2026, around 12.8% of women aged 16 and over — approximately 3.2 million people — experienced at least one of the following: domestic abuse, sexual victimisation or stalking. For men, the figure is estimated at 8.9% — around 2.1 million people. Conservative shadow minister for women and equalities Joy Morrissey, citing precisely these estimates for women and girls, criticised the announcement: “No woman or girl will feel safer because of this complete squandering of public money”, and also said that “Labour simply are not serious about tackling the crisis of violence against women and girls” and that “taxpayers will be forced to fork out £15 million on projects to tackle the ‘manosphere’”.

Context of other initiatives

The announcement fits into a series of recent steps reported by the BBC: on 30 September there was a report on First Minister of Scotland John Swinney’s plans to introduce teaching on misogyny in every school in Scotland, on 4 September — that women will advise the Mayor of London on safety issues, and on 21 July — that students face sexism and misogyny in weekend part-time jobs . Thus, the £15 million allocation is a confirmed budget pledge by the central government, whereas the Scottish school initiative and the London advisory programme remain separate measures at regional level.

Image source, Getty Images