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Child Maintenance

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his courtesy in giving us an advance copy of the Statement and in briefing me on its contents this morning. Anything I am about to say is not a criticism of him personally, as I believe that he has done his best in a very difficult situation in recent months. I do, however, disagree with the noble Lord,Lord Skelmersdale, and indeed I disagree with my honourable friend David Laws in another place. I think that naming and shaming does have a role to play in these matters. I would encourage people to look at the following website: http://pubs1.tso.parliament.uk. Those of you who are more computer literate than I am will recognise that as the Houses of Parliament website. I want to name six guilty men and one guilty woman on that website: Peter Lilley, 1993 to 1997; Harriet Harman, 1997 to 1998; Alistair Darling, 1998 to 2002; Andrew Smith, 2002 to 2004; Alan Johnson, 2004 to 2005—one notices that it speeds up towards the end; David Blunkett, 2005 only; and John Hutton, 2005 to date. Those are the Secretaries of State who have presided over one of the most serious failures by any British Government to face up to a problem. Over 14 long years they have failed millions of single mothers and their children, many of them the most vulnerable in our society. There is no excuse. They have put it off and not faced up to the problem year after year after year. On this issue above all others, Ministers must carry the can. New Labour loves talking about failing schools, failing hospitals and other failing organisations. Well, if the CSA—Chaotic Shameful Appalling—is not a failed organisation, I do not know what is. Why on earth has it taken 14 years to sort it out? Shifting the initials from CSA to C-MEC—the noble Lord likes a hard ““c””, so he calls it ““C-MEK””; I think a soft ““c”” would be more appropriate, ““C-MESS””—gives us absolutely no confidence that son of CSA, as we call it, will be any better. If, at last, there is a move towards closer co-operation with the Inland Revenue, why on earth do the Government not go the whole hog and accept that to do the job properly they should move the whole operation within HMRC? That organisation knows better than anyone else what people earn and is better able to collect the money. I do not see the point of talking about fixed-term awards based on the latest tax year information, which is often subject to frequent revision. If HMRC has the best information, put it within that structure. We do not disagree with the whole Statement. We agree with individual points, particularly the one about not writing off debt in general—making specific provision, if I can put it in those terms. But I am bound to say that this has been an appalling story of mismanagement, and this is not the answer.