Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what guidance his Department has issued to women's refuge centres and charities on the maintenance of services during the covid-19 outbreak.

My Department has been engaging with domestic abuse service providers on a daily basis to understand the additional challenges they are facing and the support needed to ensure essential provision is kept open and available to victims and their children.

Following these discussions, on 23 March we published guidance to assist domestic abuse service providers in service delivery at these unprecedented times. The guidance, in line with current Public Health England advice, sets out the advice for daily service operation within the context of domestic abuse safe accommodation provision

The guidance can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-for-domestic-abuse-safe-accommodation-provision/covid-19-guidance-on-isolation-for-domestic-abuse-safe-accommodation-settings