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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

I promised that I would deal with the point that the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare raised about what constitutes an arrangement not working. It is not for me to define that, nor is it for the agency now or the commission in the future. Parents will know if the arrangement is not working. The hon. Gentleman says that we should trust the people who are most closely involved. It may well be that circumstances will change for one or both of the parties after an initial agreement has been struck, but that there is no longer provision within the court-based agreement or minute of agreement to deal with those changed circumstances. The parties will know that, because they will no longer be able to support the children, for example. Those are the circumstances in which they will want to take another route to secure a flow of maintenance. It will be their judgment and understanding that an agreement has broken down, not ours.