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Child Maintenance

If the voluntary arrangement breaks down, the parent with care is free to submit an application to the agency, or to the commission in future, and we will rigorously enforce those applications. I agree with my hon. Friend that it is an important point, and we must make sure that parents with care do not become the victims of abusive, violent or coercive behaviour, aimed at making them settle cases against their best interests. I accept that we have more work to do on that, and we must fix the level of maintenance disregard, as that is an important issue, too. At the end of the day, we must all address one fundamental question, and answer it in one way or another: on the back of everything that we have learned over the past 13 years, do we think that it is the right way forward to move to a system that tries genuinely to encourage and incentivise voluntary agreements? I believe that we can deal with the concerns that my hon. Friend raised, if the answer to that question is yes. If the answer to the question is no, we have a more fundamental disagreement, but I think that my hon. Friend is with me on the main issue.