First, I welcome the Minister’s comments and the Bill itself. It is a good and necessary Bill, and some of the questions that we asked in Committee have been answered, for the most part.
Now, I want to let me shed a bit of light on the reality of what actually happens to a domestic violence victim when they walk into a housing office, and on the very idea that we could not be doing as much as we possibly could with every single fibre of our beings to try to better serve victims of domestic abuse. Mostly, a woman will get up and walk into her local neighbourhood office. I say “walk”, but where I live she has to get four buses because her local neighbourhood office is now shut, so she has gone into the centre of town, in the second-biggest city in the country. Even just five years ago, she would have found something different. In all the local neighbourhood centres in Birmingham—there used to be eight, then there were four in the Quadrants—there would have been a Women’s Aid worker. This was a specialist adviser in a private room where that woman could have gone to speak about her issues and would have been found the most appropriate housing. That scheme won national awards and reduced homelessness in Birmingham by 50%. The biggest reason for homelessness in most cities will be domestic abuse. That scheme massively reduced it, but it is gone now. There is no local authority funding for the Women’s Aid workers in those centres, and there is only one centre where a women can go.
The woman will walk into a busy centre where there will be absolutely loads going on. There will be people with their children and people who are homeless— 86 people are declared homeless every single day in the city where I live—and she will wait. She will then go to a small cubicle, with sides at shoulder height. The people next to her will be able to hear every single word that she says.
When I was a Birmingham City councillor, I requested that every single person who came through had to be asked whether they had ever been a victim of domestic abuse or sexual violence. I regretted it instantly. I went to a housing office—when they still existed—with one of my constituents. Next to me, in a tiny unsealed-off cubicle, a woman was sitting at her computer. “Have you got any arrears, love?” she asked. “No.” “Have you ever been a victim of sexual violence?” “Yes, I was raped.” “Have you ever been a victim of domestic violence?” “Yes, my husband has assaulted me a number of times. He has been to prison.” “Okay.” Move on.
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Nothing changed the way that that woman was approached in the future—nothing at all. I made the person tick a box that they did not want to tick. Now, we can add in another idea. If a woman has come from Walsall, or Dudley or Sandwell or Solihull, or any area that surrounds Birmingham that has nowhere near the level of local housing that Birmingham has—many women fleeing domestic abuse come to our area because the lines on a map mean absolutely nothing to them—we expect those same housing officers, that is, the ones who asked, “Have you ever been a victim of domestic violence, love?”, to now say, “Hang on a minute, actually, you have every right to be in this situation.”
There is a desperate need for training and belief. Part of the problem with this Bill is the same as that with legal aid, which is that the burden is on the victim to
prove it. If a woman turns up and says that she is a victim of domestic abuse, that should be enough. It was enough when Women’s Aid was based in our local housing associations and in our local housing offices. That is why we desperately, desperately need a firm hand in this and why we must say that local authorities must do this. I love my local authority. I know that Margaret Thatcher’s favourite council was Wandsworth—I personally think that it is weird that someone has a favourite local authority, but I have not tried them all. However, I have tried lots of them, and I have found them completely wanting when it comes to victims of domestic violence needing housing.
Let us add into the mix people who have no indefinite leave to remain. If they go to their local housing office, they will probably be told—even if they are a victim of domestic abuse—that they will not be housed and that their children will be removed from them, because the local authority does not have to house women who have a poor migration status.
There has been a hideous case in Birmingham recently where the children were threatened with removal until people like me got involved. There is a plethora of problems out there, and, with the greatest respect, the £17 million, which seems like a lot of money, will not put back what has been lost for victims of domestic abuse even in Birmingham alone. That is why we would like to see a bit of mettle in the training of housing officers. Some housing officers are brilliant—there is no two ways about it—but they are up against it. Someone could wait nine hours to see one in Birmingham. We need to ensure that there is a good system that treats these people appropriately. Unfortunately, when an authority has limited resources, its target is not rehouse someone immediately, so there is a definite need for training.
My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) covered the cross-border issue well. Unfortunately, I can see that the Minister does not think it is necessary to include it in the Bill, but I have handled hundreds of cases of women sent across the border. In fact, a woman who lived in the refuge where I used to work took the Government to court on the issue of cross-border living between Sandwell Council and Birmingham Council. The fact that a person no longer has to live in an area for whatever period it was—Birmingham said it was five years—is not thanks to anyone in this Chamber; it is thanks to charities and activists outside who bothered to take us—the decision makers—to court.
On the bedroom tax, it may well seem like a small number of women who will end up in a property that is too big for them. But I have seen many cases—I am handling one now—where women are rehoused and their children are removed from them. In cases of domestic abuse, it is utterly common that children are removed, for whatever period of time. These women then have to pay the bedroom tax, lose their property and end up in a one-bedroom flat. The judge in the family court then says, “You don’t have a house big enough to have your children back. You’re not good enough. We can’t give your children back to you.” That happens a lot. It is not a small number of women who have their children removed in domestic violence cases. The vast majority of cases going through the family courts include domestic violence, and many women end up with their children removed for periods of time that
would definitely result in them being affected by this bedroom tax loophole. We should definitely consider what we can do to amend that problem today.