10. What steps she is taking to help tackle financial abuse.

Economic abuse can have devastating impacts on victims, even after the relationship ends. The VAWG strategy included ambitious commitments to tackle economic abuse, and it was considered as a cross-cutting theme in HM Treasury’s financial inclusion strategy. Since 2022, we have funded Surviving Economic Abuse to the tune of £767,000 to strengthen financial systems, raise awareness and support victims.

Abusive ex-partners often continue their abuse by withholding funds from children and former partners, deliberately causing financial hardship. That has a huge impact on survivors, forcing them into contact with the perpetrator and enabling their abuser to continue to influence their lives. In Plymouth, I have a constituent who left an abusive relationship, but is now owed £48,000 in child maintenance payments. Despite court orders and liability orders being in place, the money continues not to be paid. Sadly, this is not a rare case limited to Plymouth; I know from speaking to my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes) earlier that this is a national problem. How is the Home Office working with the DWP and other agencies to close enforcement gaps and tackle financial abuse effectively?

It is not unusual to hear of such cases, and that is why the Department for Work and Pensions sits on the interministerial group on violence against women and girls. The VAWG strategy commits to removing direct pay, which will enable the Child Maintenance Service to manage and transfer payments, preventing the system from being used as a tool of abuse, which has in the past had fatal consequences.

Following on from the previous question, financial abuse between couples sadly does not always end in separation, and many women struggle to access child maintenance safely. Is the Home Office working with DWP colleagues to strengthen income assessments, such as by using His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs data, and to remove the 2% collect and pay surcharge so survivors can secure child support without direct contact with their abuser?

As I said in answer to the previous question, the Department for Work and Pensions is absolutely fundamental and a core part of the interministerial group that works on the violence against women and girls strategy because of the financial tools—not just through mortgages and other assets—that people have and use in cases of domestic abuse and coercive control. It is absolutely vital that we ensure that our benefit system and the state systems that relate to children are not used as a tool for abusers.