Jess Phillips

I absolutely agree. When I was running refuge accommodation, we were moving from the era of everybody living in communal refuges to a new era of people needing separate accommodation. Some of that was about the rules on safeguarding with regard to which children could and could not live together, and about boys over the age of 16—actually, I think the age threshold was 14. As somebody who has adult male children, I would not want to flee to somewhere they could not live. That is hugely important. The hon. Member for North Cornwall made a very important case for the need for legal aid thresholds. As somebody who has managed to amend our legal aid laws to carve out victims of domestic violence, I absolutely agree with him that we need to ensure that people can access the right legal services when they need them. If we had a lawyer from the Ministry of Justice in front of us, they would almost certainly be able to give a considerably more thorough answer, but there is relevant case law. For example, if someone’s asset is a house that they co-own, it cannot be included in the means test. There are a number of issues, and we need to look at whether the threshold is right. My threshold is that I believe somebody when they tell me that they are a victim of domestic abuse, but I understand that the burden of evidence has to be slightly higher for Government Departments or legal departments. In the strategy, we have committed to addressing tenancies and the economic abuse of those who do not own houses, but who live in either social housing or privately rented properties. We have to look at the threshold for exactly what evidence is needed, and make sure that it is fair and balanced.