MP Jess Phillips has spoken about trying to help a woman who suffered domestic abuse that left her unable to eat.

It was one of a number of horrific cases highlighted by the MP, who used to work with victims of sexual abuse in Sandwell in the West Midland, as she led a Commons debate about funding for women’s refuges.

She spoke out after the Government announced plans to change the way refuges for vulnerable women fleeing abusive partners are funded. Money previously went to local councils in the form of grants and to residents through the housing benefit system, but cash will now all go directly to local councils.

The aim is to ensure refuges are not affected by changes to housing benefit, but Ms Phillips warned that cash-strapped councils would not be able to meet the need for refuge beds.

Ms Phillips previously worked for domestic sexual abuse charity Women’s Aid, helping run refuges in Sandwell.

She told MPs: “Refuge accommodation is not a bed space; it is a lifeline, a community, and an experienced and knowledgeable place for recovery. Refuge is a place where people are rebuilt, where families find each other. A bed is a place where we sleep; a refuge is far more remarkable, and we would not necessarily know it unless we had seen it.

“I remember a woman coming into the refuge where I worked. She could not speak or eat, because she had been starved as part of her control. I will never forget watching a refuge worker sit with her for hours, gently feeding her some lukewarm baked beans, teaching her how to feed herself again.”

The MP added: “I remember another family where the mother had been so belittled and so dehumanised by her abuser that she could not parent her kids anymore. She had no power or influence over them at all, and her 11-year-old daughter had become the mother to a seven-year-old and a three-year-old.

“Refuge family support workers had to rebuild that family: teach mom what parenting was and, more importantly, teach her daughter to be a kid again.”

Ms Phillips also highlighted the case of a young woman with three children who was brutally murdered after returning to a partner, after being given inadequate accommodation.

“Left lonely in a Birmingham hotel, without any of the safety measures or supports that the proper refuge, which was full, would have provided, she went back. She is dead now.”

She said housing benefit sometimes allowed new bed spaces to be opened in response to demand, because it went to the women who needed somewhere to live.

But she told the Government that giving councils a fixed sum would make this impossible.

Ms Phillips asked: “Does the Minister honestly think that if a ring-fenced funding pot now went to that local council, which has to make tens of millions of pounds-worth of cuts this year, that it would not just use the money to cover the contract fees of their commissioned service?

“Councils would rightly use that money to ensure that their refuge contracts can be maintained in a time of cuts.”

Ms Phillips said Birmingham City Council had been forced to cut services for victims of abuse.

“I am not seeing any extra money. What I am seeing is 90 women and 94 children turned away from refuges every day.

“I am seeing Birmingham City Council removing 2 million quid from their supported accommodation budget in 2020, including refuge accommodation.

“The local drop-in services for victims across the city have already gone and the housing and homeless advice provided in local neighbourhood offices has also gone—but then so have the neighbourhood offices.”

Communities Minister Marcus Jones said the Government was consulting with organisations such as Women’s Aid about the best way to fund refuges in the longer term.

He insisted: “The amount of funding that we are putting into supporting victims is not changing. Under the new funding model, all housing costs - core rent and eligible service charges - will be funded by a ring-fenced grant to be distributed by local authorities, and we intend that ring fence to remain in the long term.”

Responding to Ms Phillips, he said: “Her contribution and the many other contributions to the debate were made with great passion and great insight into the utter devastation that women and children in crisis face.

“She gave vivid and heart-wrenching examples. I pay tribute to the people who work tirelessly day in, day out, to support victims of domestic abuse.“