Meeting of the Parliament 04 November 2025
Poverty, inequality and unresponsive, sometimes heartless, benefits and justice systems trap people—overwhelmingly women—in abusive homes. The report from the Social Justice and Social Security Committee that is before us today lays bare the structural cruelty that allows economic abuse to flourish and the practical barriers that make it so desperately difficult for women to leave. The report tells us clearly that financial dependence is not accidental; it is a predictable consequence of unequal power, austerity and underfunded support.
Equality before the law is a founding principle of our justice system, but that principle means little when survivors cannot access proper legal representation. The Law Society of Scotland has described domestic abuse as a legal aid desert, and the committee confirmed that reality. Indeed, as Karen Adam mentioned, the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee has also found that. We have heard that women who seek representation might have to approach between 30 and 50 solicitors in order to find one who is able and willing to take their case. That is not justice; that is abandonment.
Legal aid is means tested, but survivors of abuse should never be subjected to a financial test to prove their right to safety or protection. Dr Marsha Scott of Scottish Women’s Aid put it perfectly when she asked:
“How are you following Scottish policy in every other area connected to domestic abuse if you are means testing people who are subject to financial and economic abuse?”—[Official Report, Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, 20 May 2025; c 13.]
She was absolutely right. Legal services must be free for all women, children and young people who experience domestic abuse, with no means testing, clawback or arbitrary limits in place. I look forward to the Scottish Government’s response to Dr Marsha Scott’s principled proposal.
The committee also recognised the Scottish Government’s fund to leave pilot, which was a scheme that helped more than 500 women to rebuild safety with grants of up to £1,000. It offered what Citizens Advice Scotland described as a “deep psychological reassurance”—a cushion that made leaving possible. However, as the report highlights, although around 5,000 people are registered as homeless due to domestic abuse, the support reaches only a fraction of those in need. It must be expanded and made permanent.
The Scottish welfare fund can help, but it is stretched and inconsistent. The committee heard from women whose applications were rejected because the fund had run low. Women were forced to go into debt just to heat their homes, which is not what a safety net should look like. Economic abuse is not simply a symptom of domestic abuse; it is a deliberate strategy of control.
The committee heard how single household payments of universal credit allow perpetrators to dominate their partners financially. As Engender and Scottish Women’s Aid told the committee,
“The single household payment is a gift to perpetrators of domestic abuse”.
Next year will mark 10 years since the Parliament was empowered to introduce split payments and eight years since the Scottish Government was required to act. If it were a priority, it would have been done by now.
We must look more broadly, too. The surviving economic abuse project reminds us that women who are unable to find even £100 at short notice are three and a half times more likely to experience domestic abuse. That is why a secure, unconditional income through universal basic income or genuinely fair social security is not a utopian dream but a life-saving necessity.
The victims and survivors whose voices shaped this excellent committee report have survived unimaginable hardship. Our task now is not to admire their resilience but to ensure that no one else is forced to rely on it.
15:02