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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

There has been a great deal of all-party agreement on the need for reform of the child support system. We are in general agreement with the broad principles set out by Sir David Henshaw and consolidated in the Bill. Those are to encourage more private arrangements outside the CSA/CMEC, to increase the focus on tackling child poverty rather than reducing public expenditure claims, and to produce greater effectiveness in collecting maintenance and enforcement. It is true that during the Bill's early stages, we were concerned that its proposals might be a rebranding exercise that would not provide the root-and-branch reform needed to introduce enforcement measures that would bring about the collection of the money. As the Minister has said, the CSA has been in crisis ever since it was established by the Conservative Government back in 1993. In 1998, Tony Blair admitted that the CSA had lost a lot of public confidence, and described it as a mess in need of urgent reform. Nine years on, the CSA is still in a mess, and we are only now beginning the second attempt to reform it. The ultimate objective, however, must be that there should be a reduction in child poverty, which is at such shocking levels in this country. Today, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published a report that confirms that the Government's approach to tackling child poverty has lost momentum and is in urgent need of a major rethink. The foundation states that there has been no sustained progress in the past three years, and so one in three children in the UK live in poverty. The Bill could have gone further on the income disregard with the introduction of the maximum disregard. I regret that that did not take place. A report by the Treasury Committee, also published today, expressed the fear that the pledge to halve child poverty by 2010 is in doubt—a point that I made in Committee. This has been a fruitful and enjoyable Bill to work through. There has been a great deal of commitment on all sides to bring about the improvement that we all want to see. I want to thank the Minister, who has always responded to the points that we have raised and has brought forward some changes today. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Danny Alexander), both Chairmen of the Committee, the Clerks, who have been superb at giving us advice, and Carys Davis, my hon. Friend's researcher, who helped us to prepare our amendments. Indeed, I thank all the people who were involved. I also thank the lobby groups, particularly One Parent Families and Resolution, who have provided invaluable support on certain sections of the Bill, the British Lung Foundation and the Greater Manchester victims of asbestos support group, which gave me several briefings on part 4. The Committee was friendly, and we had an open honest debate. We certainly covered a lot of ground. However, we would like some subjects to be returned to in the other place. The charging of fees is of fundamental importance and will affect the reputation of the commission and how the public see it. We would like to see no fees charged for services provided by the commission, unless they are charged to the non-resident parent who has defaulted on payments. That should be the case at least until the commission provides a satisfactory service. It is not fair, we believe, to expect people to pay for a service that is not up to scratch. The income change of the non-resident parent that is needed to trigger a review is another issue about which we have had some concerns. A 25 per cent. decrease in income is too large an amount for the level below which a review is not triggered. That could result in some difficult situations for non-resident parents who suffer an income drop of up to 25 per cent., which will, of course, threaten the flow of maintenance to the children. We would also have liked the appointment of the chair-designate of CMEC to have been approved by Parliament. I know that that has already taken place, and that she is doing a lot of work, but nevertheless the commission's relationship with Parliament is important. We would like to see future commissioners approved by the House. We have continued to have concern about staffing levels. It is a folly to plan a reduction in staff based on an assumption about a reduction in case load, or even an assumption that the commission will be able to operate adequately at the same level as before the operational improvement plan involved the hiring of new staff. I welcome the Minister's announcement that the commission will now have Crown status. I echo his comments about the staff of the CSA. They have had a difficult job trying to make work two systems that have proved unworkable. I believe that establishing the commission on a Crown basis will give staff confidence. If we are to be successful, it is vital that we have the full confidence of the staff as they deliver in what will be a challenging few years. We would have liked interest and dividend income to be included in the information that the commission uses to assess how much the non-resident person is obliged to pay. We understand that that does not involve huge numbers of people, but we nevertheless believe that it is important. We have outstanding concerns about non-resident parents who evade their responsibilities and muddle their affairs to avoid paying maintenance. That is not in the child's best interests. We hope for success in the other place in some of the matters that I have mentioned. As I said earlier, I congratulate the Government on acting so speedily to deal with mesothelioma in part 4, and on including for the first time payments to people who have not directly worked in asbestos-related industries. It is encouraging for those of us who represent constituencies where asbestos is and will continue to be a major problem that we have been able to get such provisions in place so quickly. It means that payments will be made quickly once mesothelioma is diagnosed. Many people in Rochdale will welcome those provisions. With those few caveats, the Liberal Democrats are happy to give the Bill a Third Reading.