My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The partner often knows the system better than their other half—the lady who is trying to find a way out. The situation is also complicated by the fact that, more
often than not, the finances of the family are done by the male partner. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby referred to that, and I know it to be true in almost every case. The name on the rent book is probably the male partner’s, the application for housing benefit is probably in his name, and although the lady’s name would be on the tax credits system, applications for working tax credit would be done through him. For someone who has to leave because of threats to themselves and their family, the financial implications complicate matters. They ask themselves, “How do I get out of this system? How do I make sure I have finance to get me beyond whenever I move out?”
However, many people step in to help. The girls in my office have asked the local church charity shop to send a team to pack that girl and her kids up in one day so that when her partner returns it is a fait accompli. A method of getting her out of that house has been found. We always look to the Government, as we probably should, for a response, but the Government cannot step in all the time, so voluntary bodies—in this case a church group—sometimes step in to make the move to get a person out. My office is working with the Housing Executive and the local community group to get that young lady’s points assessed urgently—in other words, to get her the extra points she needs to get on the list so she can go elsewhere—and is providing her with emotional support, including looking at schools in a different location.
Although it does my heart good to see that we are able to help that person, we always wonder—I am sure you think the same as the rest of us, Mr Davies—how many other people out there are going through all this but do not know about the help that is available. It is good when victims know that there is help available, that people care, that they are not alone in their cycle of abuse and that that cycle can be stopped. We need a system that responds urgently to the victimised person and their family. How do we do that? Will the Minister say how we can have a system in which people’s circumstances are more urgently assessed?
Knowing that a domestic abuse call is made to the PSNI every two minutes shakes me to my core. As a grandfather, I pray that my granddaughters, when they grow up, will find good men, and that they will be good women as well. However, sometimes things do not work out, so we also need to know that should that happen—should they be blinded and miss the warning signs—there would be help available to get them out of a harmful situation. I very much agree with Women’s Aid that the current system does not respond in the way it needs to. It is not enough.
I hear these stories in my office and in the church circles I move in. I call for an urgent overhaul of the allocation system so domestic abuse victims are homed as quickly as possible. They should also be able to request correspondence only by email. Sending a letter through the post may inadvertently alert a woman’s partner to the fact that she has applied to be housed by the Housing Executive, for example. The partner may open the letter and say, “You’re moving out? What’s this all about?” There has to be another method. We must be sensitive to how we communicate with and treat people in such difficult positions. No one should feel stuck in a dangerous partnership that they seem unable to get out of. The welfare system is in place for the vulnerable, as it should be, and it is the responsibility of
us all to point people in the right direction, but we need to do better by them. For the sake of my grandchildren and everyone else’s, we need to do very much better.
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