Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department is considering legislative changes to enable mortgage lenders to offer (a) product switches and (b) term extensions without the consent of all joint borrowers where domestic abuse has been evidenced.

The Government recognises the devastating impact economic abuse can have on victims, including where joint mortgages or property ownership arrangements are used by perpetrators to cause harm.

Economic abuse was considered as a key theme in the Government’s Financial Inclusion Strategy, which was published last year, in recognition of the particular challenges victim-survivors can face in accessing financial products and services. The strategy sets out an ambitious programme of initiatives to improve financial inclusion and resilience for underserved groups across the UK, including interventions to help victim-survivors regain financial independence.

As part of this, we are working with key stakeholders, including industry and the Financial Conduct Authority, to explore how joint mortgages are used as a tool of abuse and how victims and survivors can be better supported. This commitment was also included in the Government’s Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy.

More broadly, the Government is working across departments, and with regulators, industry and specialist organisations, to improve the response to economic abuse and support better outcomes for victims. To that end, HM Treasury held a roundtable in June with Ministers across Government, representatives from the financial services sector, the Financial Conduct Authority and Surviving Economic Abuse to discuss the current response to economic abuse.