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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

I welcome these new clauses, as a serious issue highlighted in the Select Committee report is that there is an arrangement in only 51 per cent. of current cases; the other 49 per cent. do not have an arrangement. The reasons for that include the reclaim of benefit proceedings in respect of the CSA, and non-resident parents going missing and it being difficult to track them. The hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) talks a lot of sense, however, when he highlights some of the problems that will be encountered in enforcing this new regulation. While I welcome it, it might need to be fleshed out more in the other place, because it is important that the relevant agencies and utility companies understand that if a parent does not provide the necessary information CMEC will have the wherewithal to require various bodies to provide it. That is what is missing from the new clause. I welcome what it does, but we should amend it a little further to ensure that CMEC has the legal powers to require agencies to provide information about a non-resident parent when that person is clearly breaking the law and is not providing CMEC with a change of address. If CMEC is to be effective—if the mere 51 per cent. of cases with arrangements is to increase—we need stronger powers even than those that are currently included in the new clause.