Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment he has made of the availability of refuges for victims of domestic violence in (a) St Helens borough and (b) the North West.

The Department does not hold centrally the availability of refuges for victims of domestic violence in St Helens borough and the North West.

We are currently consulting on the Future Delivery of Support to Victims and their Children in Accommodation-Based Domestic Abuse Services closing on 2 August. The proposals for a statutory duty will require local authorities to convene a Local Partnership Board. Local Partnership Boards will be responsible for robustly assessing need for support for victims and their children in safe accommodation, developing, agreeing and publishing an area-wide Domestic Abuse Strategy, ensuring local commissioning of support services is in line with this to meet the diverse support needs of victims and their children and report to central Government on progress.

It is our intention that the proposals for a statutory duty, subject to the outcome of the public consultation, will form part of the Domestic Abuse Bill at a later stage.