TLC’s response to the 2026 Autumn Budget

Yesterday (28 October), the Chancellor delivered the Burnham Government’s first budget in the House of Commons.

The Budget contained some welcome measures to support families including extending paid paternity leave to self-employed fathers and partners. Whilst this is a step in the right direction, the fact remains that even with this new policy, Britain will still have the worst paternity leave offer in Europe. Paternity leave must be longer than 2 weeks in order for partners to be present in their children’s earliest day, without the financial strain many families face.

While we welcome the Budget’s measures to tackle rough sleeping and address misogyny, including £15m for youth mentoring, workplace training and campaigns to improve the safety of women and girls, we are disappointed by the lack of meaningful investment in tackling domestic abuse. Domestic abuse remains a leading cause of homelessness, yet despite the Government’s manifesto commitment to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, the Budget offers little reassurance that services will receive the investment they urgently need.

We are also concerned about the financial pressures that the 3.9% increase in the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage will place on voluntary and community sector organisations delivering vital services, including domestic abuse support. While we recognise the importance of improving pay for low-paid workers, multi-year public sector contracts often fail to account for statutory wage increases, leaving providers to absorb these additional costs. For organisations already operating under significant financial strain, this risks further undermining their sustainability and their ability to deliver essential support to vulnerable individuals and families.

We know that money worries are one of the biggest factors affecting relationships in the UK in 2026 and we welcome the Chancellor’s measures to support households struggling with the rising cost of living. These include scrapping gas standing charges, suspending tariffs on more than 100 supermarket products to keep prices down and a one-off payment of £100 to support over 20 million households with rising energy bills this winter.

We are calling on the government to consider the impact the national wage increases will have on the VCSE sector and to commit to long-term funding for services tackling domestic abuse. We also ask them to consider the impact of their policies on relationships and how fiscal decisions may affect people’s ability to connect to the people that matter the most. Only through a strong circle of safe, healthy and happy relationships will people be able to weather the challenges facing Britain.