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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

New clause 1 will make it a criminal offence for a non-resident parent not to report a change in his or her address to the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission. We will amend secondary legislation to introduce the specific requirement to report such a change. Although existing legislation requires both parents to report certain changes in some circumstances, that does not cover routine changes of address. The Child Support Agency must still ask the non-resident parent to supply details of his or her new address. Only if he or she refuses, or fails to comply with a specific request, can the agency take action. As a result of the new clause and consequential changes to secondary legislation, as long as the non-resident parent is made aware of the new requirement the commission will not need to make any specific request, and will be able to consider criminal prosecution when an unreported change occurs. Maintaining up-to-date address details for non-resident parents will allow the commission to take swifter enforcement action, and will help to ensure that annual reviews are completed without delay. It will also help to prevent the non-resident parent from manipulating the system, for example by claiming that he or she did not receive a warning that a deduction from earnings order would be imposed. Introducing such a requirement, with an associated criminal penalty for failure to comply with it, is not unprecedented—for instance, it is an offence not to notify the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency of a change of address—and I believe that this is a sensible and necessary requirement for the commission to adopt. New clause 6, tabled by the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), would place non-resident parents under a legal obligation to supply the commission with addresses at which they could be contacted. While I agree with the sentiment behind the new clause, I hope the hon. Gentleman appreciates that new clause 1 would achieve much the same effect, and that the Government's approach, unlike his, is backed by sanctions. On that basis, I hope he will agree not to press new clause 6 to a vote.