Like so many others, everyone at Platypus was shocked and saddened by the death of Sarah Everard.
It sparked a difficult but important conversation about women’s safety in our weekly meeting. It was an eye opener for me on what is clearly a universal experience for women.
One small positive change that we’re part of is the Get Home Safe campaign, which we just signed up to.
What is Get Home Safe?
Right now, if you’re out for work after 9pm and take a taxi home, that’s a legitimate business expense. But if you take a taxi home before 9pm, whatever the reason, HMRC say that’s a taxable benefit to you as an individual.
That means the government disincentivises employers from keeping their employees safe before 9pm; and you as an employee are taxed more if you try to look after yourself instead.
It gets dark at 5pm for a third of the year in the UK. So we want HMRC to change its rules around taxis, and incentivise all businesses to get their employees home safely if they’re out for work reasons.
We need more change
Of course, we know that a rule change like this is far from the only change that’s needed. Men need to be held accountable for their actions, we need to change patriarchal structures and attitudes and we need to abolish time limits to bring charges for offences for acts of domestic violence.
But we believe that if you change a rule like this, it might spark the right kinds of conversations in businesses around their responsibility for the safety of those that work for them. Maybe that will make a small contribution to the bigger change that’s needed.
Sign up now
Sign up to Get Home Safe now.
