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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

These measures give the agreements the same status as court orders. They do not address the more substantive issue of the 12-month rule that the hon. Gentleman wants to debate. We will come to that. I turn to amendments Nos. 1 and 13 and new clause 5, which would all, by differing means, prevent parents who had entered into certain minutes of agreement or court orders from ever making an application to the commission for a maintenance calculation. Under the measures, parents who decided not to use the statutory service initially for their maintenance arrangements would be locked into registered minutes of agreement or court orders for ever. The Government recognise the value of minutes of agreement and court orders, which have a positive role to play in giving parents an opportunity to agree maintenance arrangements that suit their particular circumstances and providing for regular ongoing payments of maintenance to children. However, we feel that they should be given a 12-month period in which to bed in and work, with either parent having the opportunity to come to the commission after that time if they do not work. Of course, if both parties agree that the arrangements are not working and on how they need to be changed, the parties will have the option of returning to the court for a variation. However, those provisos will not apply in most cases.