Marcus Jones
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper) on securing this important debate, to which I am pleased to respond. I have listened with great interest to hon. Members and am heartened by the passion that these critical services rightly inspire among them.
This debate follows the March publication of the Government’s ending violence against women and girls strategy, which has at its heart the principles that no one should live in fear of abuse; no victim of domestic violence or abuse should be turned away from the support that she needs; earlier intervention should be made so that fewer women reach crisis point; and that we must ensure that preventing violence against women and girls is everybody’s business.
We want to end violence against women in all its forms. That requires action to prevent abuse from the outset—as has been said by several hon. Members—so we need a range of services to support women who are experiencing abuse and to support women at immediate risk of serious harm, or even death. Our goal is simple: that no woman is turned away from the support she needs. All our efforts are focused on achieving that. As many hon. Members have said, refuges are a lifeline that provides a route from fear and violence to safety and independence. While driving early intervention to stop abuse, we must also ensure that the support women need at crisis point is available.
Anne McLaughlin
When the Minister says that no woman will be turned away, does he mean no woman? Does that mean that all women should be entitled to these services? If he agrees that they should, will he do as I asked earlier and make representations to the Home Office and the Home Secretary that they look at changing the anomaly of women who are excluded because of their insecure immigration status? I do not think the Home Secretary intended that.
Mr Jones
I can now cross the hon. Lady off my list of Members to whom I shall refer later in my speech. Yes, I will do as she requested and raise that point with the Home Office.
Although it is for local areas to make decisions on support for women who are experiencing abuse, we want to work with local commissioners of services to deliver a secure future for refuges. We know that local partnerships are working hard to deliver vital services, and I commend the work done by people in refuges up and down the country. The best areas have convened excellent partnerships to inform local service delivery. They have clear strategies and pooled budgets to get the most for their money.
We want to bring all areas in the country up to the level of the best, which is why we will publish a national statement of expectations on the provision of services to tackle violence against women and girls. We are going to provide support for commissioners and funding to help local areas to achieve those expectations. The national statement of expectations will set a framework for effective local commissioning, reinforcing the need to bring local service providers together, plan on the basis of local need, and be clear about accountability for service delivery.
Mrs Helen Grant
I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister knows that, tragically, one in four girls—some as young as 14—are hit by their boyfriends. In addition to all the other good work that the Government are doing, does he agree that that we need to talk to girls much more about respecting themselves and others, and about gender equality and empowerment?
Mr Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and absolutely agree with her. One hears about many situations in which, unfortunately, young girls are exploited by young males and peer pressure is put on them. We should be absolutely resolute in our opposition to that and about informing young girls that they should absolutely be able to say no without fear. My hon. Friend makes a really important point.
Sarah Champion
The Minister is very kind. I just want to add something that I think he really wanted to say: it is also about making sure that every boy grows up knowing about respect, consent and empathy. It is not just a girl issue, and I know the Minister wanted to say that.
Mr Jones
I completely agree. The hon. Lady and I might not agree on lots of things in this House, but we fully agree on that issue. It is not just the responsibility of girls to know when they should say no; it is absolutely the responsibility of young males to respect girls and use that respect in a dignified way so they do not put young girls under pressure to do things that they do not want to do.
Angela Crawley
I thank the Minister for giving way, given that my speaking time was so reduced. The point about female empowerment and the importance of educating young girls and teaching young boys about respecting women and girls is well made. To come back to the point of the debate—I am sure the Minister is going to do so—what are the Government planning to do to make these refuges exempt from the reduction in housing benefit and to ensure that they can remain open? I just want to keep the debate on track.
Mr Jones
I assure the hon. Lady that I anticipated that that issue might come up. It is already written in my speech, and I will explain the Government’s position in a few moments.
As I was saying, planning for local need must take account of the needs of all women in our local communities, including those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, those from isolated communities and those with complex needs. It should also take account of the need for women and children to move from one area to another to build safe and independent lives. That point has been made by a number of hon. Members. It is absolutely wrong that services are not provided for women who need to move from one area to another when they seek refuge and safe haven from the situation they are in.
Although that approach needs time to work, we must act if it does not deliver a transformation in service provision, so we will review what we are doing after two years. We are developing the national statement with service providers and commissioners to ensure that it reflects their significant expertise. To answer the hon. Member for Burnley, we hope to publish it very soon.
We understand that meeting the expectations that we are setting will be very challenging, so it is vital that local areas are funded to meet those standards and to provide the critical bedrock of specialist accommodation-based support. We will launch a two-year fund to help local areas put in place the reforms needed to meet the national statement and to support the provision of accommodation-based services. We secured £40 million in the spending review to support victims of domestic abuse. That builds on the £10 million of funding for strengthening the provision of safe accommodation in the previous spending review period and the £3.5 million fund to support the provision of domestic violence services in 2015.
We invited bids for that funding. There was interest from across the country, and 46 successful bids were announced in December 2015. We hope that there will be a similar degree of interest in the upcoming funding. To answer the question asked by the hon. Member for Burnley, we hope to open that fund very, very soon.
Jess Phillips
Is the Minister aware that the funds he is talking about, which were allocated in December 2015, had to be spent by March 2016? As always with these rounds of 10 million quid here and 10 million quid there, there is no eye on the future. It is short-termist, and if anything it provides work, not help, for women’s refuges.
Mr Jones
I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I know from her speech that she has significant experience of this area. To give her a bit more assurance, the funding that we are putting out is to cover a two-year period, which gives more time in the way that she mentioned.
I want to talk about a subject that many hon. Members mentioned—the future of refuges and the supported housing sector. My Department and the Department for Work and Pensions commissioned a major evidence review of supported housing to give a better picture of its scope, scale and cost. It will report shortly, and we will continue to work with and listen to providers to develop a long-term, sustainable funding regime for this sector.
Teresa Pearce
Will the Minister expand on what “shortly” means? Is it like when the Whips say, “Vote shortly”? When the Government say “shortly”, it can sometimes mean quite a long time. Is it weeks or months? What is it?
Mr Jones
We all do what the Whips tell us when they say “shortly”. I will have to leave the hon. Lady with the word “shortly”, but I assure her that we take this issue very seriously and that we will come forward with a long-term, sustainable funding regime. We have been absolutely clear that we want the most vulnerable to be supported through the welfare reforms, so we are deferring the application of the local housing allowance cap to supported housing for an additional year so we have more time to get this right.
At the start of my speech, I said that we want to make ending violence against women and girls everyone’s business. The Government have to lead by example. The Department for Communities and Local Government is working with the Home Office, the Department of Health, the Cabinet Office and the Treasury to ensure that no woman is turned away from the help that she needs. The point that the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) made is very important. We are certainly looking at that across the relevant Departments to ensure that no woman in the position that she mentioned is turned away.
We rely on the knowledge, the expertise and the critical friendship of many organisations. We are talking to the providers of refuges and services for the survivors of domestic abuse as we develop our policy. We are also talking to the Local Government Association and local authorities to understand how we can support their work. I sincerely hope that together we can all seize the opportunity to make a real difference to the lives of women living in fear of abuse.