My Lords, I support this group of amendments, particularly Amendments 153, 150 and 34. As other noble Lords have, I start by congratulating my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett on her excellent introduction to this debate and her tireless campaigning on these issues. I will concentrate in my relatively brief contribution on how the social security system has changed over time to leave victims and survivors of domestic abuse in a worse situation.
At Second Reading, I spoke about a constituent who I had seen in the early 1990s, early in my parliamentary career. She was in her mid to late 60s and came to see me because she had suffered decades of physical and psychological abuse. She had no money and there was nobody with whom she could stay where she would be safe and where her husband would not find her. She had no access to money because her husband controlled all the finances. She had a small state pension, dependent on her husband’s national insurance contribution, but that was paid into the bank account that her husband was the sole controller of. At that point, we were able to assist her in applying for income support to provide money immediately for her to live on and pay for essentials. That claim was processed quickly. However, today she would have the challenge of making a new universal credit claim, facing a minimum five-week delay in payment. That delay means that many rely on food banks and other forms of charitable support. It is no wonder that survivors sometimes question their decision to leave the perpetrator. How can it possibly be right to say to a survivor who is fleeing domestic abuse that they must wait five weeks for a minimum income to be paid?
While survivors can request advances of universal credit to live on, as my noble friend pointed out, these are essentially loans, with repayments of up to 30% deducted from subsequent universal credit payments for up to a year. Research by Refuge found that the majority—57% of survivors of economic abuse—were in debt because of the abuse. This means that survivors fleeing to a new life are having to take on more debt if they apply for the advance. It is hardly surprising that some of them choose instead to live on nothing for at least five weeks for fear of getting into more debt. Refuge argues that survivors fleeing abuse should be exempt from paying back advances, in recognition of the impact of the economic abuse and the traumatic and expensive nature of fleeing an abuser. The Joint
Committee on the Draft Domestic Abuse Bill agreed that the five-week delay was damaging for survivors and recommended considering converting their advance payments into grants.
Refuge has been supporting women waiting for their first universal credit payment during the Covid-19 pandemic. A combination of food banks experiencing increased demand or scaling back operations and an inability of the survivor to shop around for low-cost food means that many women whom Refuge supports have struggled. Refuge itself has purchased food, using its already limited funds, to help these women. This is unsustainable and a stronger safety net for survivors of domestic abuse is required. Amendment 150 would exempt survivors of domestic abuse from repaying universal credit advances. I hope that the Minister will respond positively to how we might be able to take this forward.
To go back to my constituent, she did not face all those challenges, fortunately, although she faced many others. Because of the local authority, she was able to find somewhere to live in rented accommodation. She did not want to go into a refuge; she felt that it was not suitable for her. The accommodation was not brilliant and it needed repair, but she was safe. She was able to apply for the rent to be paid, which she received, and for emergency grants from social security to buy the basic essentials that she needed for the flat because, of course, she had absolutely nothing after fleeing the perpetrator.
My constituent had no dependent children. If she had dependent children, she would face the two-child limit and possibly the benefit cap. Survivors now face the invidious choice of cutting back on essential living expenses, such as food or heating, compromising their own and their children’s health, or falling into rent arrears and risking eviction because of the way in which the social security system works in relation to their experience.
The Chartered Institute of Housing has provided an excellent briefing—I am sure the Minister will have seen it—which clearly demonstrates that in some cases the abuser receives more money from the benefits system than the survivor when she flees that perpetrator. My constituent was above retirement age, but had she been of working age she would have had either to maintain her employment or to face questions around her availability for work, which is an impossible position. It is a very different world now, with untold challenges in the path of someone fleeing a perpetrator. Since 2010, some social security changes have tried to take account of the needs of survivors of domestic abuse, but unfortunately the limited exemptions and discretions and the interaction of the system simply put more hurdles in their way. Therefore, a fundamental review of the social security system and how it interacts with the reality and experience of those fleeing domestic abuse is crucial.
Finally, I briefly add my support for Amendment 34. Paying universal credit as a single payment into one bank account limits women’s financial independence and access to money. As others have said, it is used by perpetrators to gain immediate control of the entire household income. Survivors can request splits in payments between them and the perpetrator. However,
this puts them at serious risk of further abuse, as the perpetrator inevitably finds out that the request has been made. Single payment as a default in universal credit desperately needs further investigation, particularly as it impacts on survivors of domestic abuse. It cannot be right that the social security system, perhaps unwittingly, traps women in abusive relationships or provides a financial advantage to their abuser when they try to flee that relationship. The Domestic Abuse Bill provides an opportunity to tackle this issue and allow victims of abuse to gain full access to the benefits system. My constituent got more help in 1990 than survivors of abuse do now. It is important that in supporting the objectives of the Bill the Government take forward a commitment fundamentally to reflect and investigate how the social security system works when survivors of domestic abuse seek its help and to ensure that those barriers are removed. I therefore support these amendments and sincerely hope that the Minister, who I know is utterly committed to the Bill, will find a way to bring this vital element to bear in achieving the objectives that she so clearly wants to achieve in the Bill.
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