Ben Maguire

I thank the Minister. Perhaps she can follow up on that point in her speech. I ask the Government urgently to reform evidence requirements for economic abuse in favour of more accessible evidential criteria. The lack of clarity regarding acceptable forms of evidence causes already limited legal aid solicitors to pre-emptively refuse to take on survivors’ cases. Having discussed and highlighted countless reasons to reform the legal aid means test for victims of domestic abuse, I must ask why legal aid is barely mentioned in the VAWG strategy, despite it being such a vital tool for victims to seek justice and crucial support. The Justice Secretary in the previous Government, Alex Chalk, is acknowledged by many in the women’s rights sector to have been open to committing to reform the legal aid barriers that victims face. I am sure, and hopeful, that the Government will be open to working with all of us to fix the legal aid means test, which, as I hope I have set out clearly, is the biggest obstacle to so many victims. I recently launched a petition to reform the means test, and I hope to widen the campaign further. How much more loss—how many more needless deaths—do we as a country need to endure? How many more debates are needed in this place for the Government to consider the issue properly? Until they commit to removing the legal aid means test for all domestic abuse victims and survivors, including those who are not currently accessing universal credit or fleeing the abuser, I hope to see urgent implementation of the delayed legal aid reforms, as pushed for by the VAWG sector. Those include the mandatory disregarding of inaccessible capital for victims of domestic abuse; the raising of the income threshold, which needs to include an annual review of the means test; and reformed evidence requirements when trying to prove economic abuse. I will end my speech there, in the hope that, by the time of the next Westminster Hall debate on domestic abuse, we will have seen tangible progress to show survivors that we stand with them, we fight with them and we will do everything we possibly can to change the system for them.