UK Government is hampering Scotland's effort to end domestic abuse

The Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act will come into force tomorrow, meaning that an offence of “coercive control” can be prosecuted in Scotland for the first time, recognising the persistent, accumulative nature of domestic abuse. This advance in our legal understanding of domestic abuse is laudable, and serves the equally important function of raising public awareness that this behaviour is not only wrong, it’s illegal.

However, if we truly want to prevent domestic abuse, this must be accompanied by a deeper, more radical change in our social, political and economic system. As long as women continue to earn less than men – be that the result of discrimination, the undervaluing of jobs typically held by women, the lower average hourly pay for part-time roles, or the fact that women are more likely to take on part-time work and take time out from their career due to caring responsibilities – women will remain more vulnerable to abuse.

The Harts’ experience, like that of so many others, brings this connection into sharp, disturbing focus. The Harts’ father, who was never physically violent until the day he committed murder, took great pains to assert himself as the all-controlling patriarch. From deciding when, and to where, they moved house, to limiting their activities, to monitoring and criticising their spending, he used his power over the family finances – including his wife’s wages – to isolate and punish them.

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This behaviour is so common in abusive relationships that it has its own designation: financial abuse. A new report by Women’s Aid in England, The Economics of Abuse, has highlighted the depth of the problem, and how policies ranging from welfare to employment, debt, housing and legal aid are integral to addressing it.

Women experiencing domestic abuse, the report explains, are “often denied access to any economic resources”, severely limiting their ability to leave without sinking themselves, and their children, into financial hardship. Meanwhile, Building Equality, an employability project by Scottish Women’s Aid, identified that some perpetrators prevent their partners from going to work or applying for promotions. Women’s economic independence is seen as a direct threat to abusers’ regime of control – and abuse is a direct threat to women’s economic independence.

The Scottish Government has recognised this with its Equally Safe strategy for preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls, which sets out a commitment to tackling women’s social, political and economic inequality as part of a whole-systems approach. And in its Gender Pay Gap Action Plan the government makes explicit the overlap, acknowledging the impact which “violence against women can have on women’s full economic participation”.

The journey towards achieving the vision outlined in these plans is, by definition, going to be a long and difficult one, but it is one which continues to be obstructed by harmful policies enacted at Westminster. Under the austerity agenda of the UK Government, which is responsible for employment law and the bulk of social security spending in Scotland, the precarious economic position of many women has only intensified.

In demonstrating its commitment to spending as little as possible on the most vulnerable by cutting welfare, introducing longer waiting periods for claimants to receive benefits, and ever-harsher and frequently incorrectly applied sanctions, the Conservative Government has displayed a staggering lack of understanding of gender inequality and violence.

Luke Hart, who has seen first-hand the most dangerous consequences of coercive control, tells me that it is imperative that governments understand their role in the continuation of abuse. “Abusers use socio-economic barriers to keep victims stuck. So, when the state creates socio-economic barriers, it facilitates abuse,” he explains.

Like the many domestic abuse experts who have spoken out on the issue, Hart believes that the Universal Credit system creates one such barrier. Delivered as a single household payment, the system breeds financial interdependence, and, as a result, puts those in abusive relationships at greater risk.

A split payment can be considered, DWP guidance explains, when requested by the claimant in exceptional circumstances, namely “financial abuse” or “domestic violence issues”. But for Hart, this provision is worthless: “Those who think asking to have a split payment prevents domestic abuse don’t understand abuse.

“The abuser would see that as the victim exerting control and the abuser wouldn’t allow it, and seeing a relatively low number of requests for split payments tells you nothing about the need for it, because the people who most need it won’t ask for it.”

With this in mind, legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament last year lays out the intention to use its new social security powers to deliver split payments by default, contingent on the co-operation of the DWP. Meanwhile, the UK

Government has ignored calls to do the same in England and Wales, announcing last month that the benefit would now be paid to the “primary caregiver” instead.

Aside from the fact that suggesting that there should be a primary caregiver in every household seems woefully regressive in itself, it remains unclear exactly how this status will be identified without the potential for further manipulation by an abusive partner. (And, of course, the title will be meaningless to childless couples.)

But this is just one example of where the UK Government is hurting – not helping – efforts to eradicate domestic abuse. Take the two-child cap on Universal Credit and Child Tax Credit. The government was given ample warning of its likely effects – pushing more women and children into poverty – but went ahead with it anyway. And, to add insult to injury, the infamous “rape clause” provides an exemption for women whose third child was born as a result of rape, but only if a third-party professional attests to their claim and they’re not living with the father.

In other words, if you were raped in the course of an ongoing abusive relationship, you’ll be financially penalised for not choosing to “just leave” – a choice which would be economically harder than ever to make.

Added to this, long-standing criticisms of employment law remain unaddressed. The Scottish Government’s Gender Pay Gap Action Plan calls on the UK Government to strengthen paternity leave rights, which would be an important step towards redressing the reinforcement of gendered roles which see women as caregivers and men as breadwinners.

Given that the UK Government’s response so far to the concerns of experts, including the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, about the impact of its economic policies has largely been to push ahead with a strategy of reckless endangerment, the notion that it will take such proactive steps seems somehow difficult to imagine.

That is no reason to stop imploring them to do so – it is essential to women across the UK that they do – but it is an important reminder of the potentially life-saving impact which devolving employment law (a policy now backed by the SNP, Scottish Greens and Scottish Labour) and social security powers in full could truly have for women in Scotland.