Domestic Violence Refuges: Funding

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)]

As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I begin by offering my thanks to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) for securing this important debate and for sharing her expertise in supporting the victims of this abhorrent crime. Her contribution and the many other contributions to the debate were made with great passion and great insight into the utter devastation that women and children in crisis face. She gave vivid and heart-wrenching examples. I pay tribute to the people who work tirelessly day in, day out, to support victims of domestic abuse. She and I seem to have some differences of opinion at the moment—I accept that—but I am absolutely committed to doing everything I can to help these incredibly vulnerable families. I know how important refuges are for their safety and for giving them the opportunity to start to rebuild their lives.

The hon. Lady asked a number of questions, and I hope to be able to respond to most of those in my speech. I apologise if I do not have time to respond to all the questions asked by hon. Members. I undertake to write to them if I do not cover the points raised or in order to deal with them in more detail.

The Government remain committed to funding vital refuge services. Since 2014, we have dedicated £33.5 million in direct grant funding to local authorities for refuges, safe accommodation and other services. In February, we announced that 76 projects across the country, covering 258 local authorities, would receive a share of the £20 million domestic abuse fund, creating more than 2,200 bed spaces and supporting more than 19,000 victims. Last month, we confirmed that we would support a further four projects. We also part-fund the Women’s Aid Routes to Support secure database. That provides information on refuge vacancies across England, enabling staff on the national domestic violence helpline to direct callers to the appropriate refuge. In 2015, we commissioned and funded the Women’s Aid No Woman Turned Away project to provide extra caseworker support to victims unable to access a refuge space. Last year, more than 400 women were supported.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley and others raised a number of concerns about the proposals to reform funding for supported housing. Let me be absolutely clear: the amount of funding that we are putting into supporting victims is not changing. Under the new funding model, all housing costs—core rent and eligible service charges—will be funded by a ring-fenced grant to be distributed by local authorities, and we intend that ring fence to remain in the long term. We also intend to use grant conditions to ensure that the funding is spent where it is intended to be spent. Everyone who is currently eligible for housing benefit will continue to have their housing costs met through our funding model for short-term accommodation. Vitally, our new model removes the need for vulnerable people to have the additional responsibility of paying their rent at a very difficult time in their lives.

We are consulting organisations, such as Women’s Aid, that support victims of domestic abuse, which have been mentioned by many hon. Members today. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, who is with us in the Chamber, and I have met Women’s Aid very recently. We will continue to discuss those organisations’ concerns and we remain open to the ideas that they are putting forward. I invite the hon. Lady to meet my hon. Friend and me to discuss some of these issues in more depth, particularly appropriate accommodation, some of the examples that she mentioned and the wider issues that she raised. As hon. Members pointed out, there is a consultation on the funding model. It closes on 23 January, so there is still time for organisations to have their say, and I encourage them to do that.

It is worth noting that the proposed grant funding model for short-term accommodation will not kick in until April 2020. A number of other strands of work are ongoing to ensure that we have the refuge provision we need. The key thing that I want to mention is our review of domestic abuse services. We are reviewing how we provide funding for care and support to make it work even harder. Our priority for the review is ensuring that victims are getting the support that they desperately need, and seeing how we can improve that support. To that end, we will, by November 2018, review funding of refuge provision in England, with a particular focus on the funding of care and support for victims. As with the funding model for short-term accommodation, we are exploring all options, including a national model for refuge provision. I can say to right hon. and hon. Members that nothing is off the table. I hope that that reassures the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green), who raised that point. We are certainly not ignoring what the Select Committees have said.

To inform our review, we are tendering for an audit of local authority commissioning of domestic abuse services, including refuges. That audit, together with the Women’s Aid Routes to Support data and Imkaan’s reports on black and minority ethnic specialist service provision, will for the first time give us a complete picture of provision across England, enabling us to assess what impact services are having and to identify any gaps in provision. Refuges are a critical part of our provision, as are the outreach services, dispersed housing and sanctuary schemes that some local authorities provide. That vital support helps victims to remain safely in their own homes, and I would like to see more councils commissioning a range of provision to meet the needs of all victims. We know that victims’ needs are very diverse.

I want to mention several other things that we are doing in this context. We are consulting on new guidance with regard to improved access to social housing for victims of domestic abuse. It is really important that in our work on social tenancies we ensure that we are on the side of victims, not on the side of perpetrators. We gave a commitment in our manifesto that we would ensure that domestic abuse victims who had to flee their area would automatically be offered a lifetime tenancy in another area. There are a number of other strands of work, including the domestic abuse Bill, on which a national consultation in the widest sense is being conducted by the Home Office. We are very keen across Government that that consultation should create a national conversation about domestic abuse.

I conclude by thanking hon. Members for their contributions today. There is certainly more work to do, particularly in relation to the funding for supported housing, and we are very keen to work not just with the various charities in this space and organisations that support victims, but with Members across the House.