Woman's Hour - The impact of the Budget on women, Nuzo Onoh, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

Following the announcement of Labour’s first budget in fourteen years – and the first Budget announced by a woman Chancellor – we hear how women across the country will be affected. Anita Rani speaks to Mehreen Khan, the economics editor of The Times, Sara Reis, deputy director and head of research at Women’s Budget Group and Jo, a participant in the Changing Realities project, a collaboration of parents and carers on a low income and researchers from the University of York and Child Poverty Action.With Halloween upon us, Queen of African Horror Nuzo Onoh joins Anita to talk about her new novel Where the Dead Brides Gather, her journey to getting published and spooky celebrations in Nigeria. How many of us have grown up with parts of our lives unknown to our parents? Born with a degenerative muscular disease, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, Mats Steen was in a wheelchair by the age of 8, and was in an out of hospital right up until he died at the age of 25. As his family mourned his loss, it emerged that Mats had an online life that his parents knew nothing about. In a new Netflix documentary, his mother Trude, his father Robert and his sister Mia describe what it was like to discover Mats' secret world. Trude joins Anita to discuss. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Laura Northedge

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and happy Diwali. Welcome to Woman's Hour. We'll be discussing another book genre today with Nuzo Ono, known as the Queen of African Horror. She'll be telling us all about her new book, Where the Dead Brides Gather. I watched an extraordinary documentary on Netflix, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin. It's about the life of Matt Steen, whose degenerative disease meant he was a wheelchair user from the age of eight. Matt's passed away at only 25, and it was then that his family discovered what a rich life he had led,

all online, through his gaming world. It's both heartbreaking and uplifting. And Matt's mother, Trudy, will be joining me to tell us all about her wonderful son. Also, it was a historic day in the halls of power yesterday. The first ever female chancellor of the Exchequer made her budget speech. But what has her budget done for women? We'll be finding out. And of course, I'd like your thoughts about anything we're discussing on the programme, but particularly about the budget. How will it impact

your life? We are always interested to know. So get in touch in the usual way. The text number is 84844. You can also email me via our website, or you can WhatsApp us on 03700 100 444. And if you'd like to follow us on social media, it's at BBC Women's Hour. That text number once again, 84844. But first, Scottish judges have overturned an 87-year-old rule related to rape cases in Scotland, which is hoped to result in more cases going to court. The rule has limited what could be done with alleged victim statements

made shortly after an alleged crime. The Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain Casey asked for the change after two sexual offence trials last year ended in acquittals. In a week when the total number of cases recorded by Police Scotland between April and September was nearly 20% higher than in the same period last year. It will mean that more cases will be prosecuted, possibly resulting in more convictions, although it is as yet unclear how big the impact will be. Well, in June, we spoke to BBC Scotland Home Affairs correspondent David Cowan about why Scotland's most senior law officer was pushing for this to happen. And David joins me again this morning from Edinburgh to tell us more. Welcome back, David. Morning. Morning. Let's talk about this decision by the Appe tell us more. Welcome back, David. Morning. Let's talk about this decision by the Appeal Court first.

What did it involve? Well, basically the issue at the heart of all of this is corroboration. Now, that's a rule which is unique to Scots law. No one else has it. It's a cornerstone of our system. It goes back to about the 18th century. And it's the requirement that there has to be evidence from two sources to prove each of the essential facts of a case.

And it's intended basically to stop somebody being convicted on the word of one person alone. Campaigners, this is very controversial, campaigners say it's a barrier to justice, supporters of the rules say it prevents miscarriages of justice. And in the case of rape cases it you know it's a particular challenge when it comes to sexual crime cases because in rape cases there are three essential facts that have to be corroborated you have to have two sources of evidence to show

that um the crime had actually taken place the physical act of rape had taken place that there was no consent and that the person accused of doing it was the perpetrator. So you have to get all of that to get the case into court. And because of the nature of the crime of rape or sexual offence, often that's very difficult. And what the appeal court announced yesterday is a significant change to that rule, which has been around for centuries. So let's go into detail of this then.

What was the appeal court asked to consider? Well, back in 1936, a man called Henry Morton was convicted of indecently assaulting a woman in Glasgow. The following year, his conviction was overturned on appeal. When that happened, the appeal court made a ruling on the use of evidence. David, your line. I'm going to pause you right there, David, because we need to hear what you're going to say. But your line is not working for us this morning. So we'll just get that sorted out and uh come back to you in the meantime um i'll move on to the next uh item we'll talk about

uh the budget and then we'll come back um to david's okay we will move on to the next item and we will come to the to the budget so how many of us have grown up with parts of our lives unknown to our parents? Perhaps you had friends they hadn't met before, or you joined a club they didn't know about. Born with a degenerative muscular disease, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Matt Steen was in a wheelchair by the age of eight and was in and out of hospital right up until he passed away

at the age of only 25. His family mourned his loss and the small impact he'd made in his life. But Matt had an online life that his parents knew nothing about. And it was only after he died that they discovered what he'd meant to other people.

In a new documentary, The Remarkable Life of Eberlin, his mother, Truda, his father, Robert, and his sister, Mia, tell the world about the maths they knew and the life he led online, unbeknownst to them. Truda joins us now to tell us more. Welcome to Woman's Hour, Truda. Thank you so much. I watched the documentary and I was so incredibly moved and uplifted. How has the reaction been? I would say overwhelming. It's been such a pleasant ride, I think.

We are so proud and so humble. It's what you think about throughout watching it with a reaction how you as a family must be feeling because it's such a huge impact when you're watching it. I'd like to start where the documentary starts, if I may, and that's at the beginning of Matt's life. What was he like as a kid? What was he like growing up?

Well, he was funny. He he was uh he was funny he was kind he was warm he was actually a very nice little boy but when he became four years old we got the diagnose and things started to change a little because i don't know how much he knew then at the age of four but we got a wheelchair he was standing in in our bathroom two three years before he needed it and just so he should prepare for what was coming and I think that did something with him that he started to think what is different with me because he used to fail a lot he couldn't run

his bicycle was very hard to so there's a lot of things he couldn't do preparing with his sister so yeah sort of how did you deal with that as a family? It was hard and it was strange because Robert and I, we found out that we had to split up.

One take Mia and one take Mats at times. So we could try to leave as normal as possible. So, yeah, it was a little bit difficult. And then at the age of eight, he was in a wheelchair. Yeah, yeah. He was tiring of falling all the time. So he just sat down. What about when he hit his teen years? What was life like then for you? He started to lose friends at school when he got about 13, 14 years old. And that was hard for him and also for us, because he started to get a little bit lonesome. But then he came across World of Warcraft.

And I think that was his getaway, his way of having a nice time with friends. And that's what this whole documentary reveals, which we will get to, because it is absolutely, as it says in the title of the documentary, it's remarkable, the story is remarkable. But just taking us back to his life um what was it like for you as a mother it i think it was very hard because it was matts and me who who struggled together i i quit my job i went home home with Mats for 10 years. And we were doing all the meetings and all the

hospitalizing and all the things with school and preparing a lot of things. So it was very hard to see that your boy gradually got sicker and sicker and you couldn't do anything about it. And we knew that what was coming, but we couldn't do anything about it. So I think a sorrow in Mia, Robert and me, started when he got the diagnosis. And how was he? He didn't bother us with any questions or thoughts. But of course, he had his moments, I would think. But he was very private on it. He wouldn't bother us with his problems more than he did, I think.

And we are going to discuss, you know, because he had his online life as well. But for those people who haven't seen the documentary or read your story, Matt's passed away on the 18th of november 2014 he was only 25 years yeah if you're okay truda can you take us back to that time he had been sick for a while and then he went to the hospital i think it was the 16th of November. He had been at the hospital a lot of times, but he always came back. But this time he fell into a sort of sleep, where you thought you didn't have any contact with him. So Mia and I, we visited him that evening on the 18th.

And he was just lying there sleeping. And around nine o'clock I said to him, I went over to his bed and I kissed him on the cheek. And I whispered in his ear that I come back tomorrow. We have to fight this night, Mats. This is very important. You really have to strengthen on and you have to fight. I come back tomorrow. this nightmats this is very important you really have to string it on and you have to fight i come

back tomorrow and then i drove mia home and went to bed and about 11 o'clock that evening the phone rang and it was from the hospital and they said that you have to come now and I said but he is not going to die and they said I think he is so Robert and I went to the car and I think I've never drawn that fast before or since it was in the parking line and we were just running through the corridors and up elevators I nearly don't remember it anymore but but we went into a hall, and four people were standing there, the doctor and nurses and so on, and they said, come here, we want to talk to you.

And then I said, no, no, no, I'm going to go to Mats. Where is Mats? And they pointed to a door, and I went in, and I climbed up to the bed, and I took Mats in my care. And he was still warm. And we had lost him 15 minutes before. He died 15 minutes before we came.

So that was a shock. And because we didn't think that he was going to die. Even doctors said that he was going to get better. Yeah. So that was hard. Then you said in the documentary that you felt overwhelmed with sadness as a family because you thought that he hadn't experienced friendships or love or made a difference in people's lives. But it was soon after he died when you realised that he'd spent so much time online that maybe you should tell his online community that Mats has passed away.

But you didn't expect what happened next. You weren't expecting it at all. Tell us what you did. Robert had the password for Matsin blog. And after two days, we thought that we had to send out a message to his online friends. We didn't know how many there were, or we could reach them at all. But we brought that missing, what do you call it again? I don't remember what it is. The last journey has come to an end, I think we called it. missing what do you call it again I don't remember what it the last a

journey has come to an end I think we called it and we send it out and thought that no one cares anyway but we have we had only got good things with us but five six hours later they started to taking in mails from people we didn't know who were. And they wrote a lot of things, long stories about maths and friendships and love and everything. So it was a shock, but it was a nice shock. Because he'd been an avid blogger as well, hadn't he? Yes, he started his blog in 2013

so it wasn't that long but he wrote eight, nine blogs I think. Yeah, so he blogged and he was part of this gaming world World of Warcraft and so you put this blog out to let his community know. How did you feel when

you saw those messages and emails coming through about your son? Oh it was it was unreal. We couldn't understand it at all. We knew rumor the girlfriend he had because she was the first to catch our message and she sent it out to the other members of the Starlight. So we knew about her, but all the others, that was very, very strange. So the documentary is called The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, and Ibelin is his avatar's name on World of Warcraft. And he'd been part of this friendship community for eight years.

You've just mentioned them. They called themselves the Starlight Guild um and then what's incredible is that they were able to animate and recreate Matt the life the game that Matt had played how how how did that come about I think it was uh Benjamin who has made this film. He found out that we have a lot of pictures. We have been filming Mats since he was a little boy. Yeah. So that was the first thing. And then there came the blog.

And then they found 42,000 chat logs on a server in Hong Kong, I think, where there were a lot of information so they could create this avatar life. And it's the real conversations that he was having whilst playing the game. So we get a real sense of who your son was. What was it like for you watching that? Because this was a separate world. You thought that he'd removed himself from real life and actually he was living this whole other life what was it like when you realized that oh we it was amazing we were just so happy for him that he had and we were wondering a lot of

times when he was sitting by the screen that he looked happy. He had a good life and we never understood why. Why are you so happy you sit there alone and you have an avatar running around in the screen? Why are you so happy and satisfied? And I think that is the answer. Why was he so happy, Trudy? What kind of things did you learn about him? What was his other life like?

What was his avatar up to? Yeah. Evelin was an extension of himself, I think. Because Mats was a very nice and quiet and good guy. And I think Evelin just...

Yeah, when he went into that role with Evelin, he could live out a lot of sites by himself the all the friends he had and you have seen the film i have yeah and you see when he starts when he logs on he's always running for 30 minutes he's running yes and feel the wind in his hair and that's all things he couldn't do in real life so so yeah what struck me Trudy was um I mean his immense compassion and as you say he was a good good man his compassion comes through in the way he interacts with the other characters of course these are real people playing from other parts of the world and how he was giving them advice in the game that was impacting them in their real life um i mean such

a huge huge sizable impact on other people's lives can you tell us about how he helped um is it xenia and her son michael Mm-hmm. Mikkel is on the spectrum. Yeah. And so he was home from school about four years, I think. And Mats started to talk to Tsenia, his mother, played with her, and she was telling him about Mikkel. And she wanted a hug, she wanted to come closer to Mikkel. And she told him about all the problems he had.

And Mats thought about that for a while. And then he came back and said, why can't we create an avatar for Mikkel? And then he can join in the game. And maybe you can get a virtual hug or get more physical with him in the game. And Xena thought about that for a while and then she came back and said,

yes, that's a good idea. And then they created Mikkel's avatar and he came in and started to play. And what was happening outside the play was that Mikkel, he went back to school. He went back to society after he had had that feeling with Avatar

and that he was not that normal as he thought he was. So that's a very cute and very, very warm story. Yeah, it's a beautiful story and he also had a, you know, he fell in love. He had romance in there. He was great with the ladies. Yeah, a woman you know, he fell in love. He had romance in there. He was great with the ladies. Yeah, a womanizer, wasn't he?

But he couldn't reveal, or he didn't for a long time, he played it for eight years, why he wasn't able to actually meet them in real life or speak to them. I think it was, he wouldn't, he would be, I can't talk English now. He, I think he, he were private. He didn't want them to take any, what do you call it?

Yeah, he didn't, he didn't want to reveal why, how, what his situation was, which is understandable. Now that you said, I said at the beginning, you know, that you said that you were sad that he might not experience friendship or have an impact in other people's lives. Having understood what a rich life he led, how as a family do you feel now? I mean, he completely proved you wrong, didn't he? Oh, yeah, he did.

And now we are so grateful. We are so grateful for all the time we got with Mats and his friends got with Mats. And sort of his short life, he was a good man who helped over 50 people. And he had a, what do you call it a source or a inside him who was very very very good yeah and that source hasn't just impacted 50 people trudy it's it's every single person who watches this documentary your son touches them including me it's really remarkable

really thank you so much for taking the time to speak to me it's been it's been very wonderful to be able to talk about your son Matt Steen thank you thank you so much the remarkable life of Evelyn is in UK cinemas and it's available to watch on Netflix now and it really is it's sad but it's also so uplifting so I highly recommend it uh now i think we can uh go back to finish off with speak to david to find out what's happening up in scotland with the rape laws let's see if his line is much better david are you back with us i am i hope there we go it's all right it's only scotland we've managed to connect um right where did we get to right so let's let's get the detail of of what you were talking about.

What was the appeal court asked to consider? Maybe give us a little recap for people who might have just joined us as well. Yeah, well, this is all about corroboration, which is the rule we've had up here for centuries. That means there has to be evidence from two sources to prove each of the essential facts in the case. Now, when you're talking about cases involving sexual crime, that's a big challenge because of the nature of it. And what's happened here is there's been a change to that very old principle of corroboration that could make a big difference in this particular issue. To get into the detail, you need to go back to 1936. A man called Henry Morton was convicted in Glasgow of indecently assaulting a woman.

The year after that, his conviction was overturned, and the appeal court at that time made a ruling on the use of evidence, which has been in place ever since. It limits what could be done with a statement made by an alleged victim immediately after the crime had taken place. It can only be used to prove that they'd always said the same thing, that their accounts of what had happened had been consistent. But it couldn't be used for anything beyond that.

So that's been in place since 1937. So back in June this year, the Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain, the Chief Law Officer in Scotland, went to the appeal court and asked for that to be overturned. What she argued for was that if a victim makes a statement immediately after a crime, when they're still suffering from what had happened, it should be allowed for corroboration. It should be allowed to corroborate other evidence that the crime had taken place and that the accused was responsible. What's important about this is that the judges

agreed with her. If you go back to the challenges of rape cases, what that means is they'll now be able to use evidence to corroborate the essential facts of the case that they weren't able to do before. And that's going to be the role going forward. And what difference is it going to make? What's going to happen now? Well, as I said, the vast majority of rape allegations in Scotland, just as the same in England and Wales,

that are reported to police, don't reach court because of all the challenges about evidence. And of those that do, in Scotland, about half result in convictions, which is lower than the rate for other offences. So this decision should mean that more cases will reach the required legal threshold to go to court, although when they get there, juries are still going to have to be convinced beyond reasonable doubt of the accused's guilt. The quality of the evidence in the case isn't going to be affected by this, but prosecutors will be able to do

more with what they have in front of them. What we don't yet know is whether this is going to result in more convictions. What's the reaction been like to this in Scotland? Very much welcomed by campaigners like Sandy Brindley, the Chief Executive for Rape Crisis Scotland. She said it was a landmark judgment that will lift the barrier

to justice. It's the second time actually that the Lord Advocate has won a change to the rules and evidence and corroboration. She said in a statement yesterday, this decision continues the evolution we are seeing in Scotland towards development of a progressive and humane justice system that truly serves our society. She thinks there's potential here to transform the way that all offences are prosecuted in Scotland. But there's a lot of concern from defence lawyers about the direction of travel up here.

We have another unique aspect of Scots law, the not proven verdict. Again, it's been around for centuries. Again, very controversial. It means means the same is not guilty but there's actually no written legal definition of not proven anywhere and it's often used in crimes involving sexual offenses now not proven is going to be abolished legislation going to the scottish parliament has cross-party support to do that but defense lawyers see it as another safeguard against wrongful convictions just like corroboration and they're worried that when you get rid of not proven when you make these

changes to corroboration we're getting to a place where there's a greater risk of innocent people being sent to jail. And another thing that's being discussed up there can you tell us about this proposal to have a pilot of rape trials without juries in Scotland? Yeah, again, ferociously controversial up here. This is part of that same legislation, which is going to abolish not proven. And it's proposing a time limited pilot of juryless rape trials. A judge would hear the case by themselves, reach the verdict by themselves. The principle behind this is that it would avoid juries being affected by so-called rape myths when they hear cases. It would avoid juries having to wrestle with sometimes very complicated legal rules when they deal with these kind of crimes.

But there's been a lot of opposition from defence lawyers. There's been talk of a boycott. People are saying it's experimenting with people's lives. It's divided the Scottish Parliament. And we're expecting to hear today that the Scottish government isn't going to go ahead with that. They are going to make changes, though,

to the rules on majority verdicts. Up here, we have 15 people on a jury. All you need for a conviction is a simple majority of eight. The government's going to propose that that should go up to 10. And that would be a balance. It's a balance that abolition is not proven

and balance these changes that are being made to corroboration. Interesting times. David Cowan, thank you very much for speaking to us. That was BBC Scotland Home Affairs Correspondent. 84844 is the number to text. I'm Sarah Treleaven. And for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake.

No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.

Now, Chancellor Rachel Reeves unveiled Labour's first budget in 14 years yesterday. It's also the first budget ever announced by a woman Chancellor. She said she will raise taxes by £40 billion, mainly by raising employers' national insurance contributions. She announced a £22.6 billion increase in the day-to-day health budget and pledged more money for schools, house building and social care. Well, today we've put together a panel to dive into the main takeaways from the budget,

as well as how the decisions will affect you at home and women generally across the country. So I'm delighted to say I'm joined by Mehreen Khan, who's economics editor at The Times, Sara Rees, deputy editor and head of research at the Women's Budget Group, and Jo is a participant of the Changing Realities Project, a collaboration of over 100 parents and carers

living on a low income alongside researchers from the University of York and Child Poverty Action Group. She's a lone parent of a nine-year-old son and works full time. Jo, Sarah, Maureen, welcome. This, as I mentioned, is the first budget ever produced by a woman chancellor, as Reeves stressed herself at the start of her speech. There's a lot riding on her shoulders to make this a positive budget for women. Let's have a listen to what she said. And while this is the first budget in more than 14 years

to be delivered by a Labour Chancellor, it is the first budget in our country's history to be delivered by a woman. Yay! I am deeply proud to be Britain's first ever female Chancellor of the Exchequer. Yay! Rwy'n ddibrydol iawn o fod yn y Prif Weinidog Cynulliad Cymru'r cyntaf o'r ex-Chech. I ddynion a phobl ifanc, byddaf yn dweud i bawb, na fydd yna ddylunio ar eich amhraffiaeth, eich gobeithiau a'ch fyddiadau. dreams. And along with the pride that I feel standing here today, there is also a responsibility to pass on a fairer society and a stronger generation to the next generation of women. So is she putting her money where her mouth is, so to speak, when it comes to her first budget?

Maureen, I'm going to come to you first. Is it a good budget for women? It's a big budget for everyone. That includes people who pay taxes, that includes for our investment capacity. I think on a macro level, this is more than we were expecting. It feels like there was a long run up to this budget. Everything seems to have been leaked. But somehow Rachel Reeves actually did manage to surprise us. I think this is a massive break with the way that fiscal orthodoxy has run in the UK for a long time. She wants to do something completely new, which is to carve out investment as a special category of a chancelless spending and make sure that that continues whatever happens to the economy. And in that sense is by trying to raise growth rate, raise productivity, and I think make very

explicit choices about who are the winners and the losers, which for a Labour government, I think, let's be honest, this is a bit of a class-based judgment. This is favouring people like public sector workers. It's favouring people who work generally, and it's penalising businesses, entrepreneurs, and ultra-wealthy. I think in the round, yes, this will be a budget that has slightly more beneficial effects for women, given the nature of our economy and our labour market. Sarah? Yes, so this budget has some important and promising announcements, like the additional funding for the NHS, for schools, and also some extra money for local government and social care. And these, these things are going to benefit women more because we tend to rely more on these services, not just for ourselves, but also for the people that we care for. And we are also the

majority of the workforce in many of these sectors. So if we think about the NHS, for instance, three quarters of the workforce are female. So it was an important budget also from that point of view. Then there was the announcement of the increase in the national living wage. So it's going to become £12.21 an hour from April. And this is very good news for women as well, because we know that women tend to be the ones that have the lower paid jobs, the national minimum wage jobs. And so when we are increasing the minimum wage, we are actually benefiting women's financial position. 84844 is the number to text if you'd like to tell me how this budget, from what you've heard, may help you or impact your family or your life. We would like to know about it this morning on the program so feel free to get in touch i'm going to bring in joe here because uh joe we'd like to know

about your life and specifically how this budget um is going to impact your life you're a single mother nine-year-old son working a full-time job the prime minister has repeatedly said he'll be looking out for working people during this parliament how are you doing in the current economic climate tell us a bit about uh your world um my world's quite a struggle obviously i work full-time um but it is not enough so i am topped up by universal credit um nothing that the chancellor's announced in the statement really affects me in the short term and maybe not in the long term either. So, yeah.

So have any of the announcements given you cause for hope? Not really. Everything that was announced like the relief on income tax starts from 2029 um the pay rise is next year there's no help through the winter um the announcement of 1 billion for the household support Support Fund and Local Assistance Scheme depends on your council and your area. And in my area, the council still hasn't decided what to do with the funding from the last batch. So we haven't even seen that yet.

So what's life like for you and your son on your current budget then? Talk us through. We just about get by. Top up on credit cards every month. Never go on holidays. Everything's just a struggle. When something goes wrong, like I need my car to work, but when it comes to MOT time and something needs doing, it's credit cards, lending money.

I'm on universal credit, but I am not eligible for any type of advanced payments or crisis loans because I work. And it's like a stigma that if you work, you're not allowed to struggle but when you have no income that you can save in your month when something happens you kind of have to get in debt. I'm going to get into the budget and break some of the bits down and come to all three of you actually to see what you think about them. We're going to start with the cost of living, just what you were talking about there, Jo. The Chancellor did announce a few measures aimed at helping households. From next year, she'll provide £1 billion to extend household support fund and discretionary housing payments to help those struggling with the cost of essentials. She also said she'd reduce the level of debt repayments that can be taken from universal

credit given to each household per month from 25% to 15%. Jo, would that help you? No. Again, the debt repayments are based on you being able to get an advance payment or a loan for a crisis situation. But as I work, I'm not eligible. I'm not eligible for the local assistance scheme because I work and the household support fund is dependent on your council. I am eligible, but it is down to each specific council how they spend that money. Maureen, how could these then help other families, possibly like Jo, struggling with the cost of living? We have to be very honest that the cost of living or living standards generally are not going to be improving in this budget. And that's, we've already heard is true for Jo, and it's going

to be true of most people on lower incomes in this budget. We've already struggled for two or three years of declining living standards. This year, living standards will barely improve. So in that sense, there is still a lot to be left wanting. And of course, it's worth mentioning a lot of the policies that Labour has inherited and will keep, including the two-child benefit cap, which is not getting reversed. The Chancellor also decided that she would only raise welfare,

which is indexed every year by inflation, by 1.7%, because that was the inflation number in September. That was a very low inflation number. She could have chosen to ignore that and perhaps just go with the average inflation, which is going to be 2.6%. This again will disproportionately hurt lower income families and women.

And just generally the fact that inflation might go up is something that women in Britain and women generally suffer more from because they are primarily the people in their households that are doing the shopping and feeling the inflation. They're sort of at the front line of how inflation affects people's psychology and their spending habits. So in some senses, these sort of perennial things that we've been dealing with in the UK for nearly

five years now are not going to be overturned by this budget. I'm going to move on to schools now because the budget also promised over £1.4 billion to rebuild the schools in the greatest needs, an increase of £2.3 billion next year to support the hiring of core subject teachers, and an increase of £1 billion in funding for SEND provision, special educational needs and disabilities. And we've been talking a lot on this programme about SEND during our special programme, specifically to women who are struggling with support for their children.

Sarah, is this good news for families and mothers? Yes, it's definitely some good announcements that will help women in particular. We know that when, you know, when certain public services like schools and in particular send education are not there or are not of the quality that should be, it is women who tend to pick up the slack with their own unpaid work. And so when we are seeing an investment in these kinds of services, they will benefit women on that sense. So that is good news. The government also announced that it will triple the amount of investment in breakfast

clubs at schools. Jo, I'm going to come back to you. Is this or any of the other announcements about schools going to have an impact on you? I'm very happy about the extra funding, especially in SEND. My child does have help at school. But my school also doesn't provide breakfast club or anything like that so it'd be interesting to see if they do start with the extra funding and what would that do for you if if your son was able to go to a breakfast club before school would that help you yeah um i currently have to pay child care um if there's a breakfast club, it might mean that there'd be an ease on how much I have to pay towards that. Tell us more.

Tell us more. What actual impact would it have on your life if that was available? It'd be a lot easier, the extra funding. Less out of my pocket where it can go somewhere else. It would be a big help five days a week if that was a possibility. But I think it's down to schools. Health and social care now. And in its pledge to provide extra funding to local government,

the Treasury ring-fenced at least £600 million for social care when it came to the NHS. She said she would increase the day-to-day health budget by £22.6 billion in order to tackle wait times and improve productivity. So, again, how is this going to impact women? Maireen, will the NHS injection be enough? I mean, that is the, I, 22.6 billion pound question. I think it was a welcome correction to some of the underspending that we've had generally across the state. But we have to be honest that the NHS was always ring fenced. So the NHS was not going to suffer the kinds of austerity that other government ministries were going to do. I think the 22.6 is it's a good

number for Labour to celebrate, but it will actually force austerity on other parts of the state, including the Home Office. So the composition of this budget is actually that in the next couple of years, the government is planning to spend and borrow a lot. And then it all sort of trails off in the next three or four years afterwards. So that raises a big question about whether the sustained level of investment in the health sector will be there. Of course, we know that the Chancellor is banking on this, on growth, basically helping pay for all of what she wants to achieve with the state. It's not clear that that growth is immediately going to turn up or at least before the end of this decade. So there are still big questions about, I think, the efficacy of a lot

of the spending, where it goes, and whether it can be used for really, really productive parts of the state rather than, I think, some of the existing inefficiencies and bureaucracies, which the Chancellor's also promised to cut down. It's a very difficult task she has on her hand. It's a very difficult inheritance that she had. And we heard yesterday she's just trying to make the best of it. And the NHS at least will be one of the winners from this budget. Will women be the winners as well, Sarah?

How is this going to improve the situation for women? Do we know where the money is going to go? Well, there has been some spending commitments already and they've been mentioned in terms of the NHS additional funding, the money that is ring-fenced for social care and also for schools, housing, local government. But I think I would like to make a point on social care in particular. So that money has been ring-fenced to be spent on social care. But it's important to note that the costs of running social care services have increased with the announcement of the increase in the national living wage and also the employers' national insurance contributions raised. So it is a question of whether that additional money will just be eaten out by the other welcomed increases in the national living wage and the employers' NICs

or whether actually we would need more money to then be able to move from where we are into a better place. Maureen, women make up the majority of public sector workers in Britain. What's the Treasury's attitude towards public investment, and particularly the women who work in this sector? Well, the government, like I said at the top, they've taken a clear, I think, class-based decision to protect public sector workers more than other types of workers. One of the reasons we know the government didn't end up raiding the pension pots of people was because they thought it would have a disproportionate impact on public sector workers. So Sarah's already mentioned the national living wage.

I think we do have to caveat with the fact that after this budget, it becomes more expensive for businesses to hire lower paid workers. That's because the threshold at which the NICS kicks in has been lowered to around £5,000. Women make up disproportionately the lower part of the income spectrum and the OBR thinks that we might lose 80,000 jobs because of this NICS increase. And if much of that 80,000 is jobs that women would have had, then that, of course, is one of the unintended consequences for women in the labour market from the raft of these policies that we've heard.

I want to bring in the carers allowance, Sarah. Rachel Rees has confirmed carers will be able to earn £45 more a week without their carers allowance being stopped. How could these changes impact the lives of women across the country? I think that's a really welcome change. I think it's been long overdue, some reform on our carers allowance. It's one of the lowest paid benefits in our system. And it's an important recognition that we are supporting the people, mostly women, who are providing unpaid care to others and who are effectively with their own work,

with their own also sometimes at the cost of their own health and stress levels and financial circumstances, they are saving the state money, actually. argue that any changes to the carers allowance system that would benefit the claimants are good news and an important recognition of the work that effectively those carers perform. We've had a message in from someone which I'm going to read out saying, Rachel Reeves is proud to be the first female chancellor and wants to inspire young women and girls. That's great. But what about those of us who were stopped from retiring at 60, retired due to all sorts of issues related to being older women and still have no pensions? Waspy women being older are invisible if, of course, there's no money. It's a tough decision. Also, women who are single are not taken into account.

It's hard working families. So let's bring in the question of pensions, Maireen. Disappointment for the WASPI women whose campaign for compensation for the pension age being hired wasn't mentioned. Yes, I don't think it was really ever on the cards. I think in the round after the sort of furore that happened over the introduction of means testing for winter fuel payments, which I think something the government announced and then was really surprised at the backlash. They've tried to protect pensioners as much as possible in this budget, and that means things like keeping the triple lock.

So the state pension will rise by 4.1% from April next year. As I mentioned, that's far higher than the 1.7% that, say, welfare benefits are going to get indexed by. And I think the fact that there were so many leaks in the press about the fact that pension pots or savings generally were going to be penalised through the tax system, they actually haven't ended up happening. The only thing that will happen is that inheritance tax will be applied on pension pots that are passed down to family members, which I think is just a loophole that

the government has closed. So I think this has been a damage limitation for Labour because it went into this budget with accusations that it was going to play a sort of generational game of hurting pensioners over public sector workers or younger people and they've tried to sort of stay away with that by keeping as much of the provisions for pensioners as possible but as you said this does not include any any lowering of the retirement age looking forward the UK needs people to keep working longer we need more people in the workforce the general trend among all rich wild economies is to raise retirement ages not to to lower them. And we are no exception. And the Prime Minister and Chancellor spoken repeatedly about it being a historic moment for women and girls, watching a female Chancellor

deliver a budget for the first time. How significant is this moment, Sarah? In terms of representation, it is a significant moment. You know, it is the first time that we have a woman as a chancellor in, I think, 800 years of history that we have that chancellor role. So it is an important message to young girls and to women about it. I suppose it's another glass ceiling that's been smashed. How significant is it, Mehreen? It's been a long time coming. Almost every rich country in the world has managed to have a female finance minister. I think in some senses, having a prime minister like Margaret Thatcher,

who looms so large of our politics, we sort of forgot that there are all these other roles in cabinets that have never been occupied by women. I think it's worth saying that this is not just a sort of representational issue. This could be much more substantive because there's evidence that female finance ministers behave differently from male finance ministers, that they take more prudent and responsible decisions, that they are less willing to make risks with the public finances. Of course, empirically, that is yet to be proven with Rachel Reeves, but there is data that shows that female finance ministers do different types of jobs than male finance ministers. And does it matter to you, Jo? Yeah, I think it's amazing.

As you say, all the roles before have been men in finance. So I am very happy to see this change. Well, we will keep an eye on all of it. Thank you for joining me to talk about it this morning, Maureen Kahn, Sarah Rees and Jo. Thank you for your input. 84844 is the number to text. Now, when it comes to horror fiction, I'm sure we're all aware of Mary Shelley's and the Anne

Rice's of the world. But what about the genre in other parts of the globe? Well, I'm pleased to say I'm joined by the queen of African horror herself, Nuzo Ono, who's set to publish her latest novel, Where the Dead Brides Gather. It follows a young girl called Bata who, after a lifetime of terrifying nightmares, discovers that she's what's known as a bride sentinel. This means she can communicate with women who've been wronged and have passed in the run-up to their weddings. Nuzo joins me now. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you, Anita. Thanks for having me. It's absolutely our pleasure. Congratulations on the new novel. Could I start right at the

beginning for any listeners who aren't aware maybe of the genre? Could you give us an insight, your insights into African horror? Oh, Anita, it's something I've talked about in so many interviews. I think now I say to people google African horror and you will find what it's all about it's another regional genre just like Spanish horror, Korean horror, Japanese horror, European horror and that's what it is so if you google it you'll find it and you're the queen of it so what's your experience how's it grown how's it grown over the years how's it grown over the years then so you know i'm really excited when i started if you googled african horror what you'd

find was the negative aspects of the country you know famine aids wars everything and i just felt okay we have to reclaim that title and make it something you know acceptable as a bona fide genre and that's what we've done now it's no longer africa and its negative aspects it's now african horror you know uh irrelevant it's stories it's great storytelling and brilliant books that take us into another world so let's talk about your new book where the dead brides Gather. It focuses heavily on the idea of the ghost bride. Why did you decide to use this motif in the book? Do you know, the story just came to me that way. But at the same time, I used to, I like reading runes.

I love runes, the Nordic runes. And I find a lot of people that ask me to read the runes are women. And inevitably they say to me, what about our soulmates, our twin flames? And that is one of the themes they keep saying, twin flames. And I said to myself, okay, let's examine what's going to happen when the Brights die. I bet you don't know what a twin flame is.

No, I was actually going to bring you back to runes as well. I'm at the people who don't know what reading the runes are. You're going to have to just... It's a bit like tarot. Yeah, tarot, yeah. It's a tool you need. You know, angel cards, tarot, runes. Give you guidance and advice through life.

Yeah, exactly. And depending on the runestone you pick, it would give you the message, you know. So, for instance, if you picked me a runestone, say, Radu, I would say to you, ooh, that's the movement, that's the wagon. That means if you're looking for your other half, who's going to be someone from, you know, a different country, a different town, you'll be traveling, you'll go on holiday,

you'll meet your second half. It's not frozen. So it's fun, it's exciting. And so when I wrote We have the dead brides gather i said to myself let's think what happens when these brides die without saying i do and they are there waiting to reconnect with their twin flames and the only way to do it is to possess the bodies of the living yeah okay okay bright. And that might explain the bright zealots. And the twin flame? I'm going to have to get you to explain that as well.

Really basic questions here, Nuzo. Sorry. Sorry. The twin flame. Yeah, twin flame is basically belief in your soulmate that you'll meet through every reincarnation. That person designed for you, that no matter what happens, death, nothing can separate you. You'll recognize yourselves in the next life cycle.

You know, it never ends. Some people never recognize. I've had women say to me, I met the bus driver. I've been giving him Christmas cards for the past three years. He's my twin flame. He still doesn't know he's my twin flame. How am I going to get him to recognize me? But then you get others.

I know a lady in my street and her husband. I believe they are twin flames. They were born the same hour, the same day, the same year, different towns. And they met up each other and they stayed together. It's amazing watching them. Magic, magic. So soulmates. The book is very female focused.

Aside from the ghost brides, it's the women in the family that you focus on. Barta's two mothers, her sister, cousin, she's just about to get married, and the other women in the community. Why focus on these relationships? Because I wanted to examine the gender imbalances, examine the power play, power dynamics in your typical rural African village, where patriarchy is not the norm,

polygamy is the norm, violence against women, it's normal, superstition rules supreme. And it all comes together into this melting pot of misery for women. And they are constantly striving for survival and resilience in that society. And so I wanted to examine all that. The story is basically one of a ghost story and supernatural possession. But I needed to examine all these. I do it in all my books.

I pick up, you know, the cultural thing. I think that's what makes regional genre, that we all try to expose our culture, the good and the bad, within that fictional narrative. That's what books do when they're at their best. They take us into another world and expose us to something. How does the superstition sit side by side with religion

then? And you are from Nigeria. How does that happen there? Because despite the effects of colonialism, we are still products of our culture. The Christian religion, the Muslim religion, but we also had the traditional

religion before all that came. And that you find most people stick to the beliefs, you know, they have the cultural practices, the festivals, and all those beliefs, despite Christianity, my side especially, it works hand in hand. And so in some villages, for instance, when somebody dies what is called an evil death, a murderer or something like that, they chuck them into what's called Adjofia, which is the bad forest, the bad bush, where you chuck away this cultural garbage so they don't reincarnate back into the family and bring evil back into the family. And that exists still today in some

villages. And we see Ola in my book, where the dead's rise gather. They are discussing taking her into that bush to bury her because she's a suicide. And so she's undesirable. And this still works hand in hand with Christianity. The churches are there. The priests are there. It's all together. Nobody thinks anything about it. It's natural. It's natural. It's just part of the culture i wanted to ask you about going to boarding school in york i'm a yorkshire lass and i absolutely love york and york but it is halloween we're talking to you about your your horror story has a quite a i'm not you know it's got quite a it's in a great way quite a spooky environment i just wonder how much you, it's got quite a, it's in a great way, quite a spooky environment.

I just wonder how much you're in. It's spooky. It's very spooky. You can go on ghost walks in York. I was just wondering how much of your childhood going to boarding school in York, all of it influenced your work. Where did your ideas come from? York didn't influence anything.

York was a trauma to me. It was totally different from what I was used to. For one thing thing I had to walk I wasn't used to walking in Nigeria you hop into the car the driver takes you everywhere and here I am in York in boarding school you can get into a taxi you have to walk everywhere you're walking through these cobbled lanes and going up and down and yeah a culture shock it's a culture shock it was and that was in the 80s very 80s, when there were hardly any black people in York. In my school, there were just the four of us black girls there.

And so it was a big culture shock. But writing, that was from my childhood, what I experienced during the Biafran Civil War, you know, and growing up in the trauma of the war. It stays with you. And now you have a fan base all over the world. I am blessed. Do you know, I'm still so surprised.

It just makes you realise where horror is concerned, there are no boundaries. Once you have a good horror story, horror lovers will love it. And they're looking for something different, no longer the same of the same. And that's why you find the big explosion of Japanese horror and horror from all over the world.

And now African horror. Wonderful. We welcome it. We want it. We need it. Queen of African horror, Nuzo Ono, it's been a pleasure speaking to you. Thank you so much. Nuzo's book, Where the Dead Brides Gather, is out now. After hearing our interview on Trudy Steen Barber, Barber in Manchester got in touch to say the story of Matt was on the radio years ago. For people who don't use Netflix, it gives more info and it's still on BBC Sounds.

She heard it and it made a great impact, so listen to it there. I'll be back tomorrow for more Woman's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Danny.

It's been too long, but I am back and I wanted to let you know about something very special that is going to be happening on the Uncanny Podcast feed this October. As we all know, this is the month of Halloween, that most ghostly time of year. And to celebrate, I am going to be doing a Halloween advent calendar. Every single day during October, I will be dropping a brand new mini case into the Uncanny Feed.

Each one under two minutes long. A tiny, bite-sized nugget of terror. An email from a listener recounting an experience they believe may have been paranormal. But is it? There will also be video versions of the stories on all of my social media channels. The episodes will land every single morning.

31 stories in all, leading all the way up to Halloween. And there might just be some special Halloween surprises to come too. So that is the uncanny Halloween advent calendar on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts. Join me if you dare. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies.

I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service,

The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.