Women’s Aid responds to the first budget of the new Labour government

Isabelle Younane, Head of External Affairs at Women’s Aid, said: 

“Last year, the now Labour Government, pledged to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) in the next 10 years if they were elected. This pledge was welcomed by Women’s Aid, as we saw it as an opportunity for tangible action to be taken towards the epidemic of domestic abuse and other forms of gendered abuse across the country.

However, with no explicit mention of violence against women and girls (VAWG) or domestic abuse in the Chancellor’s speech, and a failure to commit to new funding on tackling VAWG, we are concerned about the ability of government to meet its important manifesto commitment. Without adequate investment in the specialist services that support survivors by helping them to rebuild their lives free from abuse, this pledge will be impossible to deliver.

We are also concerned that the only reference in the Autumn Budget to domestic abuse is in the Home Office budget and in the context of criminal justice outcomes. This is despite the fact that only one in five women report abuse to the police, and that we need a whole-system approach to tackling domestic abuse if we are to truly end this national epidemic – as recognised by the National Police Chiefs Council earlier this year

Women’s Aid, alongside 20 other leading VAWG organisations sent a letter to the Chancellor, Deputy Prime Minister, Home Secretary and Justice Secretary last week, which highlighted the urgent need for sustainable funding to specialist services in the Autumn Budget and Spring Spending Review. The tragic reality is that 1 in 4 women will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime, meaning that there are countless survivors who need support. Without proper funding, life-saving services that support women and children will be unable to meet demands.

Within departmental allocations, we have continued to call for a minimum funding settlement of £516 million per year in England, to ensure that survivors can access early interventions with specialist domestic abuse services. This funding will not only save lives, but also has the potential to save the public purse as much as £23 billion a year if adequately funded – our research with ResPublica in 2022 found a £9 saving to the public purse for every £1 invested.  With our recent Price of Safety report highlighting that it can cost £50,000 for a survivor to flee, we urge the Home Office to guarantee funding of no less than £2 million for the Flexible Fund for 2025/26 and beyond, to ensure that survivors have the access to the resources they need to flee abuse.

While funding is a challenge for the whole of the VAWG sector, specialist ‘by and for’ organisations face additional barriers. This is why we are calling for ring-fenced funding for ‘by and for’ organisations who provide specialist support to Black and minoritised women, migrant women, d/Deaf and disabled women, and the LGBT+ community.

Women’s Aid will need to see the details of the departmental budgets and what this means for VAWG services, but near-absence of VAWG from the budget today is extremely concerning. We already know that the Treasury has reneged on plans to deliver on a new £10m fund for Tackling Economic Impacts of Domestic Abuse (TEIDA). We hope that we will quickly be reassured that this funding has been reallocated to another VAWG project, to avoid a reduction in spend on VAWG compared to the previous government. Otherwise, this would be catastrophic for an already chronically underfunded sector, meaning that women and children would be at even greater risk of being turned away from the lifesaving services they rely on.

Women’s Aid welcomes the increase in funding for social housing, as this will improve housing provision for some survivors of domestic abuse. However, we are clear that this needs to translate into an increase in funding for Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act in order to address unmet need. Looking ahead, we appeal to MoJ and MHCLG to address the funding cliff edge next year for specialist services commissioned under contracts linked to government funding, who are still waiting for allocations from local authority budgets ahead of their contracts expiring on 31st March 2025.

We also welcome the long overdue investment in probation services, especially given the early prisoner release scheme introduced earlier this year, putting even more pressure on already stretched probation services and their ability to ensure adequate safety planning for survivors as part of a multi-agency response. 

If the government are committed to ending VAWG, specialist domestic abuse services must be given the funding they urgently need to support women and children as they flee abuse and rebuild their lives in safety. Women’s Aid will wait for more details to emerge but hope the Government ensures that the funding attached to tackling VAWG matches the level of ambition set out in the Labour Party Manifesto, and to end this national emergency that still sees one woman murdered a week.”

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