Last week at the Labour Party Conference the Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper MP announced that a future Labour Government would provide a national fund of £3million for specialist refuges who are at crisis point and at risk of closure.
‘A Labour Government will use some of the savings to fund a national network of refuges, because those fleeing abuse should always have a safe place to turn’ – Yvette Cooper MP, Shadow Home Secretary.
This announcement has been made off the back of our SOS Save Refuges, Save Lives campaign and is a HUGE success that we can all share in. We designed this campaign with our member organisations to ensure that the voices of our specialist organisations are being heard at a time of crisis. The subsequent contributions members have made to the SOS campaign have been amazing and is a big part of why the campaign has been so successful in the 3 weeks since we launched it!
The new fund that Labour are announcing would help to ensure that our life-saving national network of refuges would be protected from catastrophic funding cuts. We are now looking forward to continuing our work with all the main political parties to ensure that a long-term funding solution is found to create a sustainable national network of life-saving specialist refuges. We still have lots to do!
“Refuges provide vital support for women and children. Local specialist services that have a track record of successfully helping women and children need our support and that’s what we will do” – Yvette Cooper MP, Shadow Home Secretary.
What’s next for the SOS campaign?
- Visit our website for more information about the campaign.
- Tell your local MP, Councillors, commissioners and supporters about the Campaign and the success we have had so far.
- Please continue to circulate the petition and tell everyone you can about the SOS Save Refuges, Save Lives campaign.
- We are using the Party Conference hashtags over the next couple of weeks so please send your SOS signals to #lab14, #cpc14 and #ldconf14 during Conference season.
- You can read about the announcement here and here.
You can read the response from Women’s Aid here.
