Domestic Abuse: Children

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Christine Jardine (in the Chair)]

Order. I am confident that we will get everybody in if speakers can keep themselves to five or six minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Hayes]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to that in her remarks.

We have a children’s social care system, and the tragic case of Sara Sharif—which the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster) spoke very powerfully about—is an important case in point where the arrangements that should be in place to protect children, decide the right outcome for them and provide an environment in which they can be safe too often fail to do that. That speaks to the need for reform. The removal of the presumption of contact puts children’s experiences, their voices and safety, back at the heart of contact decisions, where they should always have been.

I want to turn to the question of support for children who have experienced domestic abuse. Research by Women’s Aid found that 70% of children said that they would seek help in a situation of domestic abuse, but that 61% did not know where to go to find any help. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner also found that fewer than a third of victims and survivors of abuse who wanted support for their own children were able to get it—so more than two thirds were unable to access that support. Setting that against the very significant funding pressures experienced by both domestic abuse support services and children’s social care, it is clear that access to support is not currently adequate.

I am particularly concerned to read Women’s Aid’s findings from its 2025 annual audit that the proportion of organisations running children and young people’s domestic abuse services in the community without dedicated funding doubled from 15.7% to 31.4% this year. There are always costs to failing to meet the needs of children. The costs of children not being able to access support to recover from domestic abuse are seen in ongoing harm to victims and also in additional need for health services, because people who have experienced domestic abuse as children have higher mental and physical health needs, especially if they are not supported.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to ensure that the views of child victims of domestic abuse are considered when developing policy and designing services, but it is important that that translates into changes that increase awareness of abuse among children, make it easier to disclose abuse and seek help, and which make support more readily available so that children can recover.

Finally, it is important that we focus on not only what happens when abuse occurs, but how we reduce incidents of abuse in the first place. The Education Committee has emphasised the need to improve early intervention by strengthening and increasing funding for the Families First partnership. We welcome the announcement of increased funding this week. I also welcome the Government’s commitment to improve how children learn about healthy relationships at school through relationships, sex and health education and the commitment to tackle misogyny in schools. That requires tackling the pernicious information that young people are accessing online and equipping them with the skills and values to challenge such information among their peers. I hope that the Minister can set out today some further information on how those commitments will be implemented.

Tackling this issue and ensuring that every child grows up knowing how to keep themselves safe and with a good understanding of what makes for a healthy relationship, along with the ability to spot when that is not happening around them, and the ability to access help and support when they need it is a vital part of creating a country where every child can thrive.

[Christine Jardine (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that if we are going to get everyone in, please keep to five minutes.