Domestic Violence Refuges: Funding

Debate between Emma Hardy and Jess Phillips

Tuesday 12th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered funding for domestic violence refuges.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Robertson. I believe that is the customary thing to say.

Refuge accommodation is not a bed space; it is a lifeline, a community, and an experienced and knowledgeable place for recovery. Refuge is a place where people are rebuilt, where families find each other. A bed is a place where we sleep; a refuge is far more remarkable, and we would not necessarily know it unless we had seen it.

I remember a woman coming into the refuge where I worked. She could not speak or eat, because she had been starved as part of her control. I will never forget watching a refuge worker sit with her for hours, gently feeding her some lukewarm baked beans, teaching her how to feed herself again.

I remember another family where the mother had been so belittled and so dehumanised by her abuser that she could not parent her kids any more. She had no power or influence over them at all, and her 11-year-old daughter had become the mother to a seven-year-old and a three-year-old. Refuge family support workers had to rebuild that family: teach mom what parenting was and, more importantly, teach her daughter to be a kid again. I will never forget that once-serious child twirling, dancing and giggling along with the other children living in the place, after weeks and weeks of structured activity to give her the freedom of any child. If I close my eyes and think of refuge, it is not sad; it is not the image so often seen in hard-hitting domestic violence posters of a battered woman cowering in a corner. What I see is that child’s face; I see her spinning, carefree in the atrium between the flats. She is a phoenix.

I start this debate by saying that I do not agree with the Government’s proposed new funding model. I do not agree that it is the right approach yet.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

The Hull Women’s Aid service manager told me that that service, the only one of its kind in Hull, has faced year-on-year cuts of up to 15% since 2013. Loss of support for survivors would have a massive long-term impact on their mental and emotional health. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government must ring-fence the funding available for women’s refuges to ensure that those women are not let down when they need them the most?