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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) and I want to associate myself with his remarks about mesothelioma. He has worked very hard on behalf of the disease’s many sufferers and he pioneered the all-party group, so he deserves great credit for the fact that the Government have brought forward the measures in part 4 of the Bill, which my party also intends to support. I welcome the new Secretary of State to his position. He has made a good start over the past two days with two debates on two complicated issues. His predecessor is a hard act to follow. I welcome the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) to his position, too. We are all new in these roles. Our predecessors formed consensus when appropriate, but their exchanges were robust when that was appropriate, so I hope that both elements will continue during our periods in these positions. I am particularly pleased that the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Plaskitt), retains his place in the ministerial team. He has been an assiduous Minister and, as he knows, I have had cause to be grateful to him in relation to a Child Support Agency case. His work in showing what can be achieved adds to the disappointment in the many cases where such progress is not made, but I am grateful to him for what he has done. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) into whose enormous shoes I step with some trepidation. His hard work and assiduousness in this portfolio means that he is a hard act for me to follow. There has been a particular moment of trepidation for me in relation to the debate, although it is not so much to do with the debate as with the fact that I imminently expect to receive a message that my wife is on her way to hospital to give birth to our first child, due on Saturday. If that message arrives, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett) has offered to step in to replace me.