Violence Against Women

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin of Kennington, for initiating this very important debate. I have only a few minutes in which to speak and the hour is late. I am also feeling extremely cold, so if anyone notices a colleague falling asleep they had better wake them up, because I have been in this Chamber for about five hours and I am now very chilled. I shall limit my speech to putting to the Minister a few questions about the problems we face in the UK. We have had an extremely good debate that has covered both the world and many of the issues, and I congratulate noble Lords on doing that.

Like my noble friend Lady Crawley, I read with interest the latest report from the Home Secretary, A Call to End Violence Against Women and Girls: Taking Action—The Next Chapter, that was published in March this year. It sets out progress on the 88 recommendations in the action plan. It is indeed a comprehensive round-up of what the Government are doing and what they want to do. It reads well and in some parts it is very good. However, it may ring hollow in places because the broader policies being implemented by the Government will undermine many of the aspirations set out in the document. For example, on page 17 the Government want to achieve outcomes that include that:

“VAWG victims receive a good and consistent level of service across England and Wales”.

I wonder how this will be possible given what is happening on the ground.

I turn first to intelligence and information. In 2007 and 2009 the End Violence Against Women coalition was funded to provide what were called the Map of Gaps reports. Both of them were very important documents, and I shall highlight the main points. The first pointed to the fact that a third of local authorities provided no services at all for women suffering domestic violence, while the second report published in 2009 similarly reported gaps in services, pointing in particular to the problems faced by ethnic minority women. Of course, the funding for this ended in 2010. My question for the Minister is therefore about how information and intelligence is being gathered now. How accurate will the Government’s picture be of refuges and the services that are available in 2012? Who is collating the information and where and when will it be published?

What we know is that the cuts of 27% to local authority budgets appear to have been translated into cuts of 31% to the services that protect women who are experiencing violence. For example, Eaves, a local charity that supports vulnerable women, has reported that demand for its services has increased from 366 referrals for advice and support in 2009-10 to 548 in 2010-11, a 50% rise on the previous year. The 31% funding cut in the domestic violence and sexual abuse sector means a reduction from £7.8 million to £5.4 million. According to a Women’s Aid survey, on a typical day some 3,410 women and 2,502 children were living in refuge accommodation, but that 230 women seeking refuge—around 9%—were turned away due to lack of space. The number of independent domestic violence advisers, who we regarded as crucial, has been reduced. In 2011 eight major IVDA service providers supported 13,180 clients, but two of them faced cuts. This means that those services are not being provided.

I have two other issues that I wish to highlight because I think that they will have a terrible effect on services for abused women. One of them has already been mentioned by my noble friend. Refuges are going to be particularly hard hit by the changes being made to housing benefit. Are the Government monitoring the effect that this is going to have on abused women?

The second issue concerns changes to the legal aid structure that will make it more difficult for women to get legal aid when they need it. I recommend a briefing that has just been produced by Gingerbread, Resolution and Women’s Aid, which explains the problems that there are going to be for the domestic violence gateway criteria. Will the Minister assure the House that she and the Equalities Minister will be monitoring this issue and the effect that it is going to have, and will take action if what we think will happen happens?

I congratulate all noble Lords who have spoken. We have had a good and hard discussion but clearly there is much more to do.