On Tuesday 13 December, an audience at the Palace of Westminster heard from Amélie*, whose ex-husband began to abuse her after bringing her to the UK from Africa. Mirza*, originally from India, described her former husband’s efforts to take her three children away. Branca*, from Brazil, was told by her husband that she would be deported if she sought help; ultimately he threw her out of her home. These courageous women spoke at the launch of Safety before Status, a new report by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner that makes the case for extending help to migrant victims of domestic abuse, regardless of whether their migration status gives them access to public funds.
The recommendations of that report were underpinned by independent analysis by a multidisciplinary team from LSE and Oxford’s Migration Observatory. We were asked to assess how much it would cost government to provide help to survivors of DA with NRPF, and what the benefits would be of doing so. Ours was a social cost-benefit analysis—that is, it included not only financial expenditure and income for government, but also took account of and valued effects across all of society.
We looked at two possible policy approaches or ‘scenarios’ developed by the DAC. Under both scenarios, all migrant survivors would get six months access to specialist services. In Scenario 1, all survivors including those with irregular status would be able to apply for the Destitution Domestic Violence Concession and Domestic Violence Indefinite Leave to Remain (currently available only to migrants on certain spousal visas), and get access to public funds. Scenario 2 differed in that migrants with regular status could apply for DDVC and DVILR while others could access a special fund providing comparable levels of support and, in some circumstances, a special visa.
To model the likely costs, we had to estimate how many survivors with the NRPF condition would seek help, then determine how much on average it would cost to help them. The first element alone was a major exercise as there are no official figures on numbers of migrants with NRPF, which includes undocumented migrants as well as many categories of visa holders. Relying on Home Office visa data, the Migration Observatory estimated that there are likely about 1.8 million adults with the NRPF condition in the UK (of whom about ¼ have irregular status). Based on the ages and genders of migrants with NRPF, we estimated that about 32,000 survivors of domestic abuse would engage with specialist services each year, of whom about 8000 would require accommodation. These estimates were based on figures from the Crime Survey of England & Wales, with data from police reported crime as a sense check.
Were one of these policies to be adopted, the costs of helping such survivors would fall into three main categories: provision of specialist support services, Universal Credit and child benefit. Over a decade, the net costs of implementing new policies under either scenario would be about £550 million in present value terms (10 annual cohorts).
The benefits would accrue to survivors themselves and their families and communities, and to the public sector and society at large. We based our modelling on existing research, including by the Home Office, on the harms caused by domestic abuse. The largest benefit in value terms would be the prevention of physical and emotional harm. Second, migrant survivors would gain improved employment prospects and work skills – benefiting both them and their families as well as the public sector (through tax revenue) and wider economy. Third, the policies would prevent homelessness and destitution. The final large benefit would be to children who no longer had to live in households where there was domestic abuse.
There is uncertainty around many of the inputs to the model: how many migrants there are, how many are survivors of domestic abuse, how many might engage with any new services provided, and the speed at which support organisations could increase capacity. Under our central estimate of the effects of policy change, the benefits to society as a whole would exceed the costs to government by a factor of about 4:1. Scenario 1 has a slightly higher benefit-cost ratio than Scenario 2.
The Commissioner´s report was laid before Parliament on 13 December. By law, the Government is required to respond to her recommendations within 56 days.
*Survivors’ names have been changed
