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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many LGBTIQA+ specialist refuges and hostels there are in England.

My Department does not hold central data on the number of specialist refuges in England.

However, I can confirm that we do support specialist refuges, including LGBTIQA+ specialist refuges, which provide safe accommodation for victims of domestic abuse and their children. During 2020/21 we have committed funding to support safe accommodation services, including, £16.6 million to 75 local authority-led projects, and a further £10 million emergency funding to support safe accommodation charitable providers during the Covid-19 pandemic.

On 5 June we announced that £8.1 million of this emergency support funding will be granted to 103 successful charity bids, supporting a total of 147 charities providing domestic abuse safe accommodation of which 42 organisations are providing specialist support to diverse groups. The remaining funding remains open for bids and we would welcome applications from those providing vital specialist support.