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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

It is all right, Mr. Speaker. I am prettier than my hon. Friend. I rise to agree with all the points that have been made in opposition to the Minister's points, particularly the points of principle, and to add two small points to those that have already been made by those on this side of the House. First, I am concerned that the Minister tried to justify his position by saying that he believes that it is important to allow people recourse to CMEC if a minute of agreement or court order is no longer working—I paraphrase. As has been ably pointed out, there are plenty of recourses and remedies, if that situation should arise, that do not require people to go back to CMEC. There are plenty of courses that people can use via the courts to vary an agreement that do not require them to go back to CMEC. There does not have to be a mandatory solution for people to go off to CMEC just because court orders or minutes of agreement are likely to fall over and leave people with no maintenance—I think that that was the phrase that he used. That situation is not likely to arise, because the courts will ensure that it cannot. I am stuck when it comes to understanding what mischief the Minister is trying to avoid. I suspect—I fear—that he is trying to avoid allowing any sort of agreement that diverges from the Government's preferred set of purely revenue-based solutions. Why is not he willing to trust the people who are best placed to work out what is right for them—the two separating parents, who have the blood connection with the child—on the assumption that they are being properly legally advised, through court proceedings, on both sides? It is not a big thing to ask. I believe hon. Members should trust the people who put us here, and trust that they are being carefully advised. I fear that the Under-Secretary is worrying about people disagreeing with the Government's preferred Revenue-based solution rather than trying to provide them with a genuine choice. Even if the Under-Secretary does not agree with that basic point of principle, may I at least ask him to tackle two technical points, which may be about to hit him on the back of the head if he does not accept some of the more broad-based points that the Opposition are making? If, as he has enunciated in the past, he genuinely wants to reduce the number of cases going to CMEC compared with the number that the CSA handled, does not it make sense to try to allow as many people as possible to choose the route of minutes of agreement or court orders rather than providing a method of undermining those and therefore driving people back to CMEC after a year and a day? Does not he accept that the number of cases coming to CMEC is likely to be higher in future than it would otherwise have been? It would also be helpful if—either in the Bill or through regulations—the Under-Secretary tried to explain and define in a bit more detail what he means by a minute of agreement or a court order that is not working. Can he put boundaries around that? For example, the Government have already accepted that they do not wish people to be able to vary their maintenance agreements if their income has changed by less than 25 per cent. up or down. Yet, a year and a day after a court order or a minute of agreement was made, if the income of the parent who pays the maintenance had increased by, for example, 15 or 20 per cent., and would not, under the Government's existing scheme, be eligible for a CMEC-based change to maintenance, the parent with care could request a new order under CMEC because they would get more money under the new regime through the increase in the income of the parent without care, which had nevertheless not increased by as much as the Government determined in the Bill was an appropriate amount to allow for a variation in the payments. Surely that would be a breach of the Government's attempts to limit the number of changes of circumstances and times that people have to go back to CMEC. If the Government are willing to accept the principle of variation of income for CMEC cases, should not they also be willing to define the circumstances in which a court order or a letter of agreement can be varied before people can return to CMEC? Will not the Government at least put some boundaries around that, so that it is not simply a question of the parent with care being able to go back to CMEC under any circumstances? Surely the Government should be willing to place limits on that, even if they are not willing to accept the broader principles that the Opposition have expressed.