Women’s Aid

Debate between Amber Rudd and Anne McGuire

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

I am delighted to follow the hon. Lady the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod). It is a pleasure to be in Westminster Hall under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea. I do not think that we have met in these circumstances before. I am delighted to be here today.

I want to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke). I have known him for many years, long before he was a Member of the House. I know from previous experience that he has long been an advocate for support services for women, not only in his own constituency, but across Scotland. For Members who may not be as aware as I am of my right hon. Friend’s history, he was the president of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities at one point.

My right hon. Friend has done rather a lot in his life—for a man who is only 45. He was president of COSLA when local authorities in Scotland were trying to come to an understanding of what violence against women—it was mainly, but not exclusively, violence against women—meant for those women, their families and their communities. He was part of the drive in Scottish local authorities to recognise the problem and deliver services. It is fair to say that that was not always easy. Many local authorities turned their face against the provision of such services, and many a battle had to be fought to establish the idea that there should be a discrete service focused on women’s needs as part of mainstream activity. I hope my right hon. Friend does not mind my embarrassing him, but we sometimes forget that people had a life before they came into Parliament, and it is worth putting part of that history on the record.

From my right hon. Friend’s analysis, we can see the benefit of the experience that he brings to this subject. He is an assiduous constituency Member of Parliament and he keeps in touch in a way many of us might replicate; I am not saying that we are all bad constituency MPs, but I can verify that he is one of those Members who is known to all his constituents and who knows all of them. It is not often that we get the opportunity to pay a little tribute to one of our colleagues, and I hope that his ego can stand it.

My right hon. Friend’s analysis of the situation was telling. He emphasised that it is not only statistics that are important. As politicians, we talk about statistics, but every one of them represents an individual person who is part of a family, a street and a wider community. That was echoed in the contribution by the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth and in other Members’ interventions.

There are two themes in the debate, but I want to concentrate more on one of them, although I appreciate that the Minister will wind up on both. One theme is the responsiveness of the benefits system to women—it is mainly women we are talking about. I hope, however, that that is not misunderstood; as the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) mentioned, this is not just about women, and there are men who find themselves in this position. However, the overwhelming majority of cases involve women, so, for shorthand purposes, I will talk about them.

[Amber Rudd]

My point was that welcomed the fact that men are participating in a debate that is primarily about women. I totally support what the right hon. Lady says, but I also welcome the fact that it is not only women who are supporting action on this important issue.

[Mrs McGuire]

I appreciate that. I may not have explained myself properly. I was saying that there are men who find themselves on the receiving end of domestic violence. However, I fully endorse the hon. Lady’s comment that this is not just a women’s issue; it affects women, but we should all be interested in it. I am more than happy to make that clear.

As I was saying, there is the specific issue of how the benefits system responds. There are then the wider elements that have been highlighted, and there is significant expertise at practitioner and political level on some of them. It is fair to say that some of the issues about the benefits system relate to continuing uncertainty about what the new Welfare Reform Act 2012 will deliver. People who rely on some element of benefit support and who are in or—this is increasingly the case, sadly—out of work face uncertainty, as the Government roll out their welfare reform programme. We have had some pretty robust debates on welfare reform, and I will not go back over them. However, we want to see what can be delivered under the new legislation to make sure people understand what its impact on them will be.

I want, therefore, to deal with some specific points about the impact of the new welfare legislation on women who face domestic abuse or domestic violence. As the Minister will be aware, the benefits system is designed for the many, but it must also show sensitivity to individual circumstances. I hope we all agree that such circumstances are sometimes difficult to anticipate and, even when we do anticipate them, difficult to frame provisions for in primary legislation. I hope that she will be able to give Members and, more importantly, those who face the trauma of domestic violence some confidence that what is being put in place can respond to individual circumstances. The test of any benefits system is not the high-level principles or the high-level legislation, but what the system means to an individual when they are at a point of need and how responsive the system is.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs McGuire]

That is the general feedback that many hon. Members are getting from women’s aid organisations. The age of 35, for women in that situation, is perhaps inappropriate.

[Amber Rudd]

It would be interesting to see the evidence for that. I say that in all honesty, because the right hon. Lady’s argument is interesting, but for some women being in shared accommodation with other women in a refuge might be helpful. Shared support is important.

[Mrs McGuire]

That is a fair point, and it was the argument prosecuted by the Minister on Monday. However, it is one thing to offer women the choice to stay in accommodation with other people; for many women that would not be their choice. Although it is anecdotally-based, the view that that requirement might be an impediment to moving women into their own accommodation has a strong resonance in women’s aid organisations.

The regulations passed on Monday proved that the general can be finessed to the specific, and I hope that the Minister will discuss with her departmental colleagues whether some easement of the relevant aspect is possible, so that women, many of whom have been their own person for a long time, will not be forced into a particular choice, but offered a range of choices. Are we really going to say to those women that the only option for them at 33 or 34 is to share a flat with someone else—and not necessarily, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green)pointed out—people they know?

Another element on which I wish to question the Minister is the way that the new universal credit regulations will work for those who have had to leave home because of domestic abuse. Universal credit is a household benefit, and a test of its responsiveness to individual circumstances will be how flexibly it enables one allocation to a household to be deconstructed when one partner leaves the household, often in traumatic circumstances. That is a question not just of the speed of response, but of how that will give the confidence that was spoken of earlier. I appreciate that the decision makers dealing with these issues might not deal with them daily, but we need some confidence that they will be able to respond quickly to those who need to establish a second claim for universal credit under the new regulations.