I fear that too often violence against women and girls is consigned to being a single issue, when in fact it is something that pervades every level and aspect of society. It touches every realm of policy, and it requires a holistic response.
That’s why I am very much looking forward to the Government’s upcoming Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy. It is vital that we have a truly cross-Government, cross-departmental response to this pandemic facing women and girls. Every Minister knows that they both individually and collectively have a role to play in tackling VAWG, and ministers in MHCLG have a particularly key responsibility given domestic abuse is both the third most common trigger of homelessness and the leading cause of homelessness among women.
A little over a year ago, at Labour’s Conference, I was in the hall to hear the Prime Minister make a historic pledge that this Labour Government will ensure that no victim of domestic abuse is left without a home. In December 2024, as part of a £1 billion package to tackle homelessness, the Government provided over £633 million to the Homelessness Prevention Grant, which supports councils to provide temporary accommodation to people like those fleeing from domestic violence, constituting a £200 million increase. In July 2025 the Government ended the local connection test for victims of domestic abuse, removing a key barrier to those seeking refuge outside of their local authority area.
We have made good progress, however we must continue to push in the right direction. It is imperative that victim-survivors can access safe and secure emergency accommodation, as well as affordable long-term housing options.
We need to ensure that every victim is able to access high-quality emergency accommodation, delivered by specialist VAWG services, when they need it. Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 already places a statutory duty on Tier 1 local authorities to assess need and commission emergency safe accommodation for survivors.
Long-term chronic underfunding, however, means that the specialist services providing emergency refuge are operating on a knife edge. As a result, refuges currently must refuse 65% of requests for a place and community-based services can only support 50% of people who ask for help. We are left with an indefensible situation now where over a quarter of domestic abuse services are having to turn away children. Despite year-on-year increase in refuge bedspaces, Women’s Aid research in 2025 found available vacancies have been decreasing since 2019/2020, largely due to the £321 million shortfall in government funding for local specialist women’s domestic abuse services. This inadequate funding must be addressed.
And there is also a particular dearth of refuge space for victims with no recourse to public funds or victims who are wheelchair users. As a result of poor provision, we see far too many victims being placed in unsuitable accommodation such as B&Bs, hotels, and hostels, where they do not feel safe.
The increasing prevalence of short-term contracts for specialist services, something which almost doubled from 2022 to 2024, has knock-on implications for retention of staff and expertise and forces those services to divert resources away from frontline support and towards often overly complex and inefficient re-tendering processes.It’s therefore key that we place specialist services on a sustainable footing with multi-year funding arrangements. This must include ring-fenced funding for ‘by and for’ services who support ethnic and other minorities, often ignored for larger but less specialised institutions in large part due to short-termism and underfunding.
There are 270 Multi-Agency Risk-Assessment Conferences (Maracs) across England and Wales, which are meetings in which the local police, health, child protection, Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (Idvas), probation and other specialists share information on victims at the highest risk of harm from domestic abuse. A quarter of Maracs in the UK have not received any referrals from their local housing agencies, which means this vital, protective forum is missing out on information crucial to victims’ safety.
MHCLG this year conducted research on this issue and found that implementation and multi-agency working in relation to housing is very patchy and variable across the country. To address this, all housing providers should work towards DAHA Accreditation which is the UK benchmark for how they should respond to domestic abuse.
We need to do better when it comes to linking health, social care, and housing given Independent Domestic Violence Advisors in health settings often raise housing as a major issue. What do they do, for example, with those who are fit to discharge from health settings but who are not safe to discharge?
This is why we need a ‘Whole Housing Approach’, as advocated by Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse and the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance. A Whole Housing Approach brings together all housing tenure types, with a Housing Coordinator to amplify effectiveness, limit blind spots, and reduce the risks associated with of moving between provider types, such as dangerously long waiting times or losing eligibility for support. Some local authorities have already adopted this with success. Islington and Chesire East councils were both awarded the DAHA Platinum Accreditation for ensuring that survivors of domestic abuse get the best possible response around their housing needs, thanks to their Whole Housing Approach.
We also need mechanisms to support victims to stay in their own homes. We should remove perpetrators and be brave about housing them away from victims rather than expect the victim to uproot their lives. Sanctuary schemes, where hardened security measures such as reinforced doors and alarms are installed, reduce the need for survivors to leave their homes, local support network, and children to leave their schools. These were proven to reduce homelessness applications as far back as 2010 and were recognised as a form of safe accommodation under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, however they still suffer from varied levels of council buy-in and administrative delays.
Where victims have to leave, we must improve support to re-locate including increased deposits for new tenancies, or what are called ‘managed reciprocals’ to move victims to social tenancies in other local authority areas whilst retaining their tenancy. These schemes are mutually beneficial for councils that collaborate on them and help prevent loss of a social tenancy which is a devastating form of re-victimisation.
Across all tenure types there must be statutory training of staff to be able to spot and respond to domestic abuse, with a clear process of referring them to specialist domestic abuse organisations. Research shows that victims experience abuse for an average of almost three years and seek help from multiple services before receiving effective support. Professionals lack skills in identifying abuse, asking the right questions, and effective referral. Within the healthcare sector staff training has been found to increase domestic abuse identification rates by 30%.
There is also an economic case for investing in an improved housing response to domestic abuse victims. A recent study by the University of Central Lancaster and Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse, has proven a Whole Housing Approach not only prevents homelessness but would save councils money. Over £10 is saved for every £1 spent across public services thanks to avoided costs such as police time and NHS responses.
Unlocking the potential of housing for growth and security is key to this Government’s Plan for Change. I am hopeful that through our planning reforms and our upcoming VAWG and homelessness strategies, we will be able to tackle the scourge of violence against women and girls and meet our commitment to halve it within a decade.