Domestic Abuse and Hidden Harms during Lockdown

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the needs of people living with autism and other such conditions, as she always does when the opportunity presents itself. I hope that she welcomes the mental health reforms that the Government have announced this week, which will be a real step forward in us all understanding the differences between autism and Asperger’s, and the ways in which they are wrongly treated at this point in time under the historic legislation. I also hope that she is aware of the national strategy for disabled people, which the Prime Minister is absolutely committed to publishing. Only yesterday or the day before, in fact, I attended a meeting chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), to work out across Government how we can help people with disabilities, including those who live with autism.

As to the specific points on data, sadly, there is much room for improvement when it comes to the collection of data in respect of victims. I will take away my right hon. Friend’s specific question, because I am very clear in my mind as to how those health conditions can make a person more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, and ensuring that disabled victims of domestic abuse are better looked after will be part of our work. I will draw upon her advice and wisdom in this respect, because we want to be clear that no matter what health conditions and disabilities people are living with, they should not be victims of these terrible crimes.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab) [V]]

Abusers exploit lockdowns to increase their control, so I welcome the “Ask for ANI” scheme, which the Home Affairs Committee called for.

On the vital issue of funding for services, can the Minister explain whether the £11 million that she announced is the same £11 million announced for the second lockdown, or is there any additional funding for this difficult third lockdown? The domestic abuse commissioner called for funding to be extended beyond March. Can she tell us whether that is happening?

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the right hon. Lady and her Committee for the work that they do to scrutinise, rightly, the work of Government in this regard. I hope that I was clear that the £11 million was the £11 million announced in November, and that was very much directed towards helping organisations for the rest of the financial year.

We are working very closely with domestic abuse services to understand the strains that they are facing. I know from speaking to chief execs of the charities that, like a lot of frontline services, frontline workers are just feeling exhausted by having to work in these conditions and with the extra pressures that they have faced over recent months. This money is taking us up to the end of this financial year.

On domestic abuse services beyond the end of this financial year, the right hon. Lady will know that we have just had the spending review process. We are in the middle of working out allocations, but I hope that she draws some comfort, as I said to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) earlier, that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has already committed £6 million to helping tier 1 local authorities prepare for that really important duty, set out in the Bill, to help victims in safe accommodation.