Solicitor General Harriet Harman must be feeling pleased. Women being victimised by domestic violence are getting unprecedented support from the Home Office in the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill introduced in October.
Women have come a long way since the first refuge for battered women was set up by the women's liberation movement 30 years ago. Ms Harman has championed battered women and Women's Aid refuges, and this legislation is the outcome.
Public and professional awareness will be the key to making this law work.
Scotland pioneered eloquent consciousness-raising publicity, first with poignant Zero Tolerance posters which covered buses and walls in the early 90s, revealing the raw statistics on the scale of abuse. The campaign was borrowed all over the world.
We can all learn from Scotland's initiatives. The Zero Tolerance Charitable Trust's re- search uncovered devastating expectations of violence and sexual coercion in boys' attitudes to women. This evidence exposed the need for a cultural revolution.
The Scottish Parliament galvanised everyone involved in protecting mothers and children from men's violence, from the politicians to the providers.
That's because women have critical mass in the Scottish parliament: around half the MSPs are female, and about half a dozen of those women had already worked on domestic violence.
Typically, at the October launch of the Scottish voluntary sector's Equality and Human Rights Coalition, a Glasgow councillor and a minister in the Parliament both alluded to the centrality of domestic violence to equality and human rights and to the community and crime agendas.
Women's Aid estimates that 100,000 children live with domestic violence in Scotland, and the Executive has just awarded an astonishing 6m to specialist services - including children's workers.
If the Home Office Bill is to work, it will also need to match this kind of commitment.
We know that the Government often ignores its own evidence, but it should be emboldened by research commissioned by the Cabinet Office - as yet unpublished - which yields fascinating findings from survivors: they want tough awareness-raising campaigns, but a softer touch inviting engagement with support services - they balk at words like 'refuge' and 'crime'.
Their preferred place for in-formation is nurseries and schools. That's where they felt safe and free. The message is clear: nursery workers should be prime targets for training on domestic violence.
