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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

There will be no conflict of interest. We want to maximise the opportunities of, for example, Citizens Advice, One Parent Families and the Child Poverty Action Group. All were involved in the extensive, cross-party consultation that took place before the Bill was drafted and following the Henshaw report. While I am about it, I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new position; I look forward to working and sparring with him. The arrangements in the Bill provide for a simpler, less bureaucratic assessment process, with new powers to obtain data from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Never again will the system be frustrated by relying on non-resident parents to provide information on their earnings. The measure legislates for the creation of a new, non-departmental public body, with radically strengthened powers to recover maintenance from those who repeatedly fail to pay. The new Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission will replace the existing Child Support Agency and mark a clean break with the past. The new commission will have primary responsibility for all aspects of operational and policy delivery. The CSA was set up in 1993 to replace an inadequate system of court-administered child maintenance. Despite the best efforts of its staff, it has never fulfilled the purpose for which it was established. We all, including me, know that as constituency Members of Parliament. Its problems are well documented. When we came to office in 1997, the agency cost more to run than it collected in maintenance. It took longer to process claims than the courts. We introduced the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Act 2000, which made important changes, simplifying maintenance calculations and strengthening enforcement measures. The agency’s performance has improved. Since 1997, it has doubled the number of children who receive maintenance payments—that is a credit to its hard-working staff, who do a good job in difficult circumstances. The operational improvement plan is helping us to go still further in ensuring that the agency delivers for the parents and children who currently depend on it. That means that 200,000 more children will benefit from maintenance payments, with an additional 40,000 children lifted out of poverty. However, the operational improvement plan for the CSA was designed only to stabilise it and improve its performance in the short term. It cannot address the underlying structural weaknesses of the system. For that reason, Sir David Henshaw was asked early last year to advise on a fundamental redesign of the whole system. The Bill builds on his recommendations and embeds three principled objectives in the heart of our reforms. They are to enforce children’s rights and parents’ responsibilities by maximising the number of cases; to provide a cost-effective and professional service, which gives the taxpayer the best value for money; and—most important—to make the greatest possible contribution to lifting families and children out of poverty. The Bill will deliver those objectives. Together with the operational improvement plan, we expect the Bill to increase the number of parents who receive maintenance payments by 90 per cent., cut administration costs by approximately £200 million and lift a further 100,000 children out of poverty.