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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of levels of funding for local domestic abuse (a) services, (b) counselling and (c) advocacy support.

Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)

The Ministry of Justice is quadrupling funding for victim and witness support services by 2024/25. £154 million of funding has been committed per annum across this Spending Review period, totalling a minimum of £460 million over three years (2022/23 to 2024/25 inclusive). This is up from £41 million in 2009/10. This multi-year funding allows victim support services, and those commissioning them, to build resilience into services and ensure consistency in the support that victims receive.

Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 introduced new statutory duties on local authorities to ensure that all victims, including their children, have access to support within safe accommodation when they need it. This includes counselling and advocacy support.

Since 2021, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has committed over £507 million, including £129.7 million in 2024/25, to councils across England to fund this duty. Funding from April 2025 will be determined at the next Spending Review.

This is a locally led duty. Each council must work closely with their Local Partnership Board to assess the needs of victims locally and commission the right safe accommodation support services needed to meet the identified need.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will take steps to increase the level of support available to victims of domestic abuse who are waiting for their trials to begin.

Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)

We are doing more than ever to ensure victims continue to receive the support they need as we work hard to ensure swift justice.

The Government recognises that support services play a vital role, and that Independent Domestic Violence Advisors can be critical to helping victims of domestic abuse at all stages of the criminal justice system. This includes when they are waiting for their trial to begin.

We are quadrupling funding for victim and witness support services by 2024/25, up from £41m in 2009/10. The funding will allow us to increase the number of Independent Sexual and Domestic Violence Advisers by 300 to over 1,000, a 43% increase over this spending review period (2022/23 to 2024/25 inclusive).

To ensure that there is clarity on what victims can and should expect from the criminal justice system response, on 8 November 2023 we reintroduced the Victims and Prisoners Bill, alongside a wider package of measures designed to improve victims' experiences of the criminal justice system.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when the replacement programme for the suspended Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Programme in June 2022 will be implemented; and whether his Department has made an assessment of the likelihood that perpetrators of domestic abuse who have not joined a new programme are still able to have regular contact with their victims before course completion.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The Government is actively considering options to address the current lack of Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Programmes in the family court. We are working with providers and the domestic abuse sector to explore interim arrangements, including potential new referral mechanisms, ahead of developing a revised model of support for domestic abuse cases in the family court.

The welfare of the child is the paramount consideration in any decision made by the court regarding child arrangements and the Government is working closely with stakeholders across the system to understand the impact the current change in provision has had on children and families. A timetable for the introduction of the new domestic abuse intervention offer will be confirmed in due course.

The Government has introduced a number of protections for survivors of domestic abuse in the family court. The Domestic Abuse Act prohibits cross-examination of victims by perpetrators and provides automatic eligibility for special measures for victims of domestic abuse in the family courts. The Act also makes it clear that ‘barring orders’ are available where further proceedings would risk causing harm, particularly where proceedings could be a form of continuing domestic abuse

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help ensure (a) accessible and (b) culturally sensitive support is available for survivors of domestic abuse.

Answered by Sarah Dines

Tackling domestic abuse is a key Government priority. It is deeply harmful, not only because of the profound effect it can have on victims, survivors and their loved ones, but also because of the harm it inflicts on wider society.

The importance of specialised provision, which is able to provide culturally sensitive support was clearly made in the Violence Against Women and Girls Call for Evidence which we ran in 2021.The Call for Evidence elicited an unprecedented 180,000 responses, and underpins both the National Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy and Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan.

There was a clear call “for support to be tailored to specific forms of violence against women and girls or specific groups of victims and survivors (including men and boys, people from different ethnicities and LGBT people) to ensure all victims and survivors were able to access appropriate and effective support.”

This is why the Domestic Abuse Plan, commits to over £140 million for supporting victims of which £47 million will be ringfenced for community-based services to support victims and survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence.

Furthermore, we will ensure this funding is accessible to the range of organisations and agencies working with victims and survivors, and have sought input from the sector to support the government do this.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 19 December 2022 to Question 107146 on Domestic Abuse: Victim Support Schemes, what progress her Department has made on delivery of the flexible fund in the Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan .

Answered by Sarah Dines

The Government is committed to delivering the ‘flexible fund’ that was set out in the Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan published in March 2022. The Plan made several multi-year commitments covering the duration of this Parliament, including the flexible fund.

Since the Plan was published, detailed work has been underway on how such a fund could be operationalised. This includes considering the advantages and disadvantages of the fund making direct cash payments to victims and survivors, as opposed to domestic abuse charities purchasing goods and services on behalf of victims and survivors.

If the fund were to make cash payments, we have considered how to ensure they solely benefit victims and survivors. This is particularly important in cases of economic abuse, where perpetrators control the finances of those they abuse.

Further details on how the ‘flexible fund’ will be delivered should be made in the coming months.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make it her policy to introduce new funding aimed at increasing access to support for victims of domestic abuse.

Answered by Sarah Dines

Tackling domestic abuse is a key Government priority. It is deeply harmful, not only because of the profound effect it can have on victims, survivors and their loved ones, but also because of the harm it inflicts on wider society.

In July 2021 the government published the cross-Government Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy to help ensure that women and girls are safe everywhere - at home, online and on the streets. This was followed by a complementary Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan, published in March 2022 and which seeks to transform the whole of society’s response to domestic abuse.

Within the Domestic Abuse Plan, the government commits to investing over £230 million, over a three-year period, into tackling these heinous crimes. This includes over £140 million for supporting victims of which £47 million will be ringfenced for community-based services to support victims and survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing an emergency fund for those impacted by domestic abuse to provide them with the resources required to flee the perpetrators of that abuse in the context of the increases in the cost of living.

Answered by Sarah Dines

Tackling domestic abuse is a priority for this Government. A key part of this is making sure victims and survivors get the support they need.

The Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan, which we published in March, invests over £230 million, including over £140 million specifically for supporting victims and survivors. The commitments in the Plan include doubling funding for the National Domestic Abuse Helpline.

The Plan also committed to establish trials of a ‘flexible fund’, which charities could use to provide extra money to victims and survivors in light of the increased cost of living.

More widely, the Government is providing direct Cost of Living Payments to more than 8 million UK households on means tested benefits. These payments will be tax-free, will not count towards the benefit cap, and will not have any impact on existing benefit awards. The Government also is protecting the most vulnerable in society, many of whom face the biggest challenge making their incomes stretch, by increasing benefits in line with inflation. This means that they will rise by September Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation – 10.1%.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment of the consequences for her policies she has made of the recommendation of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner of a flexible national funding pot, to help enable survivors of domestic abuse to escape abuse.

Answered by Sarah Dines

Tackling domestic abuse is a priority for this Government. A central part of this is making sure victims and survivors get the support they need.

The Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan, which we published in March, invests over £230 million, including over £140 million specifically for supporting victims and survivors.

This included a commitment to establish trials of a ‘flexible fund’. In the Plan, we committed to making funds available to charities, who would have discretion on how they could be used to support victims and survivors.

Delivery of the ‘flexible fund’ by charities could involve cash payments being made to victims and survivors, in the same way proposed by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner. These payments could help victims and survivors to leave an abuser.

The Government has also noted the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s report mapping provision of support services for domestic abuse victims and survivors. across England and Wales. A full response will be provided in due course.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will list the recipients in each local authority of funding under Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 including how much each recipient was awarded.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

We do not hold information on the breakdown of funding between services in each local authority. Under Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 each local authority is required to commission the right support in safe accommodation to meet local needs in line with their local strategy, working with their domestic abuse local partnership board.

So far, local authorities are in receipt of two years of new burdens funding for the delivery of their duties - £125 million in both 2021/22 and 2022/23. This has enabled local authorities to plan for and commission support services to meet the needs of victims.

Funding allocation for both 2021/22 and 2022/23 can be found in the following links below:

2021/22- https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/funding-allocation-methods-new-domestic-abuse-duty

2022/23- https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-authority-domestic-abuse-duty-2022-to-2023-funding-allocations

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many (a) in house local authority and (b) independent domestic abuse services that have received funding under Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 broken down by local authority.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

We do not hold information on the breakdown of funding between services in each local authority. Under Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 each local authority is required to commission the right support in safe accommodation to meet local needs in line with their local strategy, working with their domestic abuse local partnership board.

So far, local authorities are in receipt of two years of new burdens funding for the delivery of their duties - £125 million in both 2021/22 and 2022/23. This has enabled local authorities to plan for and commission support services to meet the needs of victims.

Funding allocation for both 2021/22 and 2022/23 can be found in the following links below:

2021/22- https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/funding-allocation-methods-new-domestic-abuse-duty

2022/23- https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-authority-domestic-abuse-duty-2022-to-2023-funding-allocations

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to research by Women's Aid on the impact of increases in the cost of living on women who have experienced domestic abuse, published on 1 August 2022, what discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on the potential merits of providing additional financial support, above what has been provided for energy costs, to help support victims of domestic abuse in winter 2022.

Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Tackling domestic abuse is a priority for this Government. As is ensuring all victims and survivors of this heinous crime get the support they need.

I have discussed with ministerial colleagues how best to tackle domestic abuse.

An integral part of this work will be to deliver commitments made in The Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan, published in March 2022. The Plan invests over £230 million into tackling domestic abuse, including over £140 million for supporting victims. This funding year, the Home Office has also provided over £190,000 to the Police and Crime Commissioner of Leicestershire to support the delivery of a programme that aims to change perpetrator's behaviour.

As part of the Plan, my department committed to run trials of the ‘flexible funding model’. This is where funds are given to charities who support victims and survivors. Those charities would then have wide-ranging discretion on how these funds can be used. This includes addressing financial obstacles to victims and survivors moving forward with their lives.

We are aware the cost of living may exacerbate risk factors for victims and survivors of domestic abuse. We are listening to feedback from stakeholders, including Women’s Aid, and are taking this into account through our work on flexible funding.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to support domestic abuse victims during the cost of living crisis.

Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Government is committed to ensuring that all victims of domestic abuse receive the support they need, when they need it. In March 2022, we published the cross-Government Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan which invests over £230 million into tackling domestic abuse, including over £140 million for supporting victims.

To help to ensure victims do not remain with an abuser for fear of not having a roof over their head, the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities introduced a new legal duty within the Act on local authorities to provide support for victims of domestic abuse and their children within safe accommodation, including refuges. This is backed by £125 million of Government funding to ensure that these vital services are available to anyone who needs them, wherever they live.

Ensuring victims and survivors have the funds to move forward with their lives is crucial. That is why in the Domestic Abuse Plan, the Home Office committed to running a further trial of the flexible funding model. The funds will be made available to charities in selected local authorities, and they will have wide-ranging discretion on what these funds can be used to acquire, based on their first-hand understanding of individual’s needs.

We also know that economic abuse can often leave victims economically dependent on abusers, creating financial insecurity that makes it harder for them to access safety. The Government is committed to tackling this form of abuse which is why for the first time in history, economic abuse is now recognised in law as part of the statutory definition of domestic abuse, included in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 (the Act). In the Domestic Abuse Plan, we have committed £200,000 of funding to further support improving the response to economic abuse.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to (a) provide support for groups for victims of domestic abuse and (b) increase the availability of those groups.

Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury

Tackling domestic abuse and ensuring victims receive the support they need is a priority for this Government. Our landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021 will strengthen our protection to victims and ensure perpetrators feel the full force of the law. It includes the first legal definition of domestic abuse, improved support for victims in the courts, new offences, including on non-fatal strangulation, and strengthened legislation around cruel acts of controlling or coercive behaviour.

The Act also places a duty on local authorities in England to provide support to victims of domestic abuse and their children in refuges and other safe accommodation, backed by £125 million of Government funding to ensure that these vital services are available to anyone who needs them, wherever they live. This will be supported by a new £6 million Domestic Abuse Capacity Building Fund to help Local Authorities prepare for the upcoming duty.

In March 2022, we published the Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan which will seek to transform the whole of society’s response in order to prevent offending, support victims and pursue perpetrators, as well as to strengthen the systems processes in place needed to deliver these goals.

The Plan invests over £230 million into tackling domestic abuse. This includes over £140 million to support victims, much of which is multi-year funding, part over £47 million of which is ringfenced for community-based support services.

As committed to in the cross-Government Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy published on 21 July last year, the Home Office has also provided an additional £1.5 million funding this year for ‘by and for’ service provision and to further increase funding for valuable specialist services for victims of violence against women and girls.

The Home Office is also planning to double funding for survivors of sexual violence and the National Domestic Abuse Helpline by 2024-25, and further increase funding for all the national helplines it supports.

The VAWG National Statement of Expectations, and Commissioning Toolkit, which we have published alongside the Plan, will also provide support to commissioners to help them increase provision of ‘by and for’ and specialist services.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what support is being made available for victims and survivors of domestic abuse, including children (a) nationally and (b) in Leicestershire.

Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 introduces a range of measures to help protect victims of domestic abuse and their children, including prohibiting abusers from cross-examining their victims in the family and civil courts, giving victims enhanced access to special measures in the courtroom, and introducing powerful new Domestic Abuse Protection Notices and Orders. The Act recognises that domestic abuse can impact on a child who sees or hears or experiences the effects of the abuse and it treats such children as victims of domestic abuse in their own right.

In 2021/22, the Ministry of Justice provided £150.5m for victim and witness support services, including those which support victims of domestic abuse. Of this, the Leicestershire Police and Crime Commissioner received c£2m to commission local victim support services.

We are increasing funding for victim and witness support services to £185m by 2024/25. This additional funding will enable us to significantly expand victim support services including increasing the number of Independent Sexual and Domestic Violence Advisers funded by the MoJ to over 1,000. On 25 March, the Ministry of Justice announced that it will be committing £147 million of this budget per annum on a multi-year basis, for the next three years (2022/23 to 2024/25 inclusive). This will allow victim support services, and those commissioning them, to invest in building capacity and strengthen the resilience of services, which will in turn provide consistency to victims receiving support. It will help to ensure that high quality support is available to victims when needed.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to (a) support groups for victims of domestic abuse and (b) increase the availability of such groups.

Answered by Rachel Maclean

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to help protect victims of domestic abuse when non-molestation orders have been breached and offenders have up to 28 days before being charged.

Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

Non-molestation orders are civil orders made by the family court to protect victims and their children from the harm of domestic abuse. Breach of an order is a criminal offence. The police take breaches of such protective orders extremely seriously and have the necessary powers to arrest, investigate and commence criminal proceedings. Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the police can hold a suspect in detention for up to 96 hours depending on the seriousness of the case, or up to 14 days under the Terrorism Act, before being charged or can grant pre-charge bail if there are no grounds to keep a suspect in detention while the investigation continues. The police have further powers to remand the suspect in custody once charges are made, for example if there is a risk of further offences being committed by the suspect if released on bail before a court hearing.

In addition, the Government is bringing in reforms to the pre-charge bail regime through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which will allow for better protection for victims in all criminal cases, including violent and sexual offences. The reforms include the removal of the perceived presumption against use of pre-charge bail; new risk factors to be considered when making bail decisions; amending the timescales and authorisation levels for pre-charge bail, and a new duty to seek views from victims on bail conditions which relate to their safeguarding.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what support his Department providing to victims of domestic abuse.

Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

As part of the Government’s ambition to protect and better support victims of domestic abuse, the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 introduces a range of measures to help protect victims of domestic abuse and their children. These include important new protections and support for victims ensuring that abusers will no longer be allowed to directly cross-examine their victims in the family and civil courts, and giving victims better access to special measures in the courtroom, such as protective screens and giving evidence via video link. The Act also introduces measures to tackle levels of domestic abuse including new criminal offences such as non-fatal strangulation and suffocation and extending the coercing and controlling behaviour offence to remove the “living together’’ requirement, so that the offence applies to partners, ex-partners or family members, regardless of whether the victim and perpetrator live together.

Building on the Domestic Abuse Act, we have made substantial commitments in the Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan published by the Home Office in March 2022, to better support victims of domestic abuse. Commitments include multi-year funding for victim support services which are crucial for helping victims engage in the criminal justice process. As part of this, the Ministry of Justice is bolstering support for victims by increasing its funding from £150.5m in 2021/22 to £185 million by 2024/25. This will ensure support is available to more victims and includes funding to increase the number of Independent Sexual and Domestic Violence Advisers to over 1,000, and other key services like crisis helplines. A Perpetrator Strategy forms part of the Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan and sets out clear commitments to prioritise addressing behaviour, stopping people from becoming perpetrators and victims in the first place.

Through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, we are also giving victims more time to report domestic abuse-related assaults by extending the time limit for prosecutions to six months from a formal report to the police within an overall limit of two years from the offence. We have also consulted and will publish a draft Bill which will continue to ensure victims are at the heart of the criminal justice system.