The National Assembly for Wales 2016/17 budget was agreed on the 8th of March and includes protection for the Supporting People budget, which funds refuge and floating support services in Wales.
Welsh Women’s Aid gave evidence to the committee scrutinising the budget, and we are pleased that the budget has been amended from its original version which would have seen substantial cuts to this budget. For a full breakdown of the budget allocation, please click here
However, Welsh Women’s Aid is extremely disappointed by the UK Government’s announcement last week that it will only fund one organisation working with women in Wales from its ‘Tampon tax’ fund – Action for Children Swansea SAIL project. This is just a mere 7% of the funding given to organisations across the UK, and 4% of the total pot.
Welsh Women’s Aid, along with other chronically underfunded specialist domestic abuse services in Wales, applied for these desperately needed funds for the violence against women sector, as women themselves have borne the brunt of austerity measures introduced by the Conservative UK Government.
Although we fundamentally disagree with a tax on women’s sanitary products to begin with, and welcome yesterday’s announcement that the tax will now be scrapped, these much needed funds (many of which were collected in Wales) would have been an invaluable resource that could help to save lives and free women from terrible abuse.
For a full copy of our briefing on the ‘Tampon tax’ announcements and the UK Budget 2016, please click here.