Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many applications his Department has received to the £3 million fund to increase provision of safe accommodation with specialist support for victims of domestic violence.

My Department received 74 applications from across England for funding from the £3 million fund to increase the provision of safe accommodation with specialist support for victims of domestic abuse.

Given the high quality of the bids received we increased the fund to £3.5 million to support additional bids for safe accommodation and specialist support for victims of domestic violence.

We announced the successful bids on 11 December 2015 (see the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/35-million-awarded-to-make-sure-domestic-abuse-victims-get-help). In total we are supporting 46 bids which will deliver 710 new bedspaces and support for 3,798 victims.

Over the Spending Review period we have committed £40 million of funding to support the victims of domestic abuse.