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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

I believe that over the next few days and weeks the House is in for an unusual treat in that we have in front of us the Minister who is responsible for this whole area of child maintenance. He is not the first and he will not be the last. I hesitate to say that because I know that he does not like his job to be referred to as temporary. In his closing remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, did not appear to take account of the announcement which the Minister made at Second Reading and which is the subject of the next group of amendments—that is, he will remain in charge with the exception that under him will be a chief executive and a chairman of this new commission. Of course, he will not be responsible for day-to-day operations but then he never has been. However, he will be responsible for direction and guidance and for seeing that things go as the policy directs. The other reason why the House is in for a treat is that over the past few years the Minister has shown himself in my presence to be very careful to listen and, once he has made up his mind that the arguments are correct, to act upon them. Until now, he has had to go through two other Ministers: the Secretary of State of the time and the Minister responsible for the Bill, who, in the two cases that I am thinking of, as he will remember, were Members of another place. Here, we have direct access and I look forward to it. The Minister says from a sitting position that he is not sure that he is, but I do not know why not. He is, for once, in a position of great power and I am all for it. It was Maria in the ““Sound of Music”” who said: "““Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start””." The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, almost started like that because in his opening paragraphs he referred to what we are all talking about—that is, children. I shall come to the fact that children and their maintenance in the widest terms already exist in the legislation. However, it seems that the noble Lord has sought to go one better and put down a shopping list not only of what subjects are in the Bill but of what he would like to see in it. He described this as a ““policy framework””, if I may use shorthand—I see him nodding. Not being very familiar with my thought processes, the noble Lord probably does not know that I am on record more than once as saying that I do not believe in shopping lists, nor purpose or objective clauses, even if they are basically correct. That may or may not be because many years ago I was, with different responsibilities, in the Minister’s position. I am sure that this first debate will help our discussion on the Bill, not least because it behoves us to remember some basic facts on child maintenance that get totally forgotten, or at least ignored,. We are not really starting from here. However, we are, as they say, where we are. The Bill is legislation by reference, and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, that it would be helpful to our debates to remember that this is an amending Bill. It amends the Child Support Act 1991 and, in part, the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Act 2000. The 1991 Act, unlike the 2000 Act, in neither of which did I take any part, starts with three guiding principles. These seem to be perfectly adequate. Section 1(1) of the 1991 Act—I see the Minister has it in front of him—states: "““For the purposes of this Act, each parent of a qualifying child is responsible for maintaining him””." Until now, ““maintenance”” has meant cash maintenance. I note the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, and the two noble Baronesses which, quite correctly, seek to widen the meaning of the word ““maintenance””. I shall discuss this when we reach the appropriate stage. Subsection (2) goes on to say: "““For the purposes of this Act, an absent parent shall be taken to have met his responsibility to maintain any qualifying child of his by making periodical payments of maintenance with respect to the child of such amount, and at such intervals, as may be determined in accordance with the provisions of this Act””." Subsection (3) states: "““it shall be the duty of the absent parent””—" with whom we are chiefly but not entirely concerned— "““with respect to whom the assessment was made to make those payments””." If that does not set out the background to what we are to discuss over the next few days and weeks, quite honestly, I do not know what does. The Act goes on in Section 2 to put the welfare of children at the centre of what the Act—now Acts—seeks to achieve. That it did not achieve its objectives is not the fault of those first two sections. I therefore ask what is in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, that we need to add to the duties and general principles of this composite Act. After all, the first three parts of the Bill, with their accompanying schedules, plus Part 5, are purely and simply amending provisions. As for the details, subsection (1)(a) in the amendment prompted me to think that we will not be considering children’s parents but children’s natural parents—and both of them at that. I remember children I have met who automatically call their stepmother or stepfather ““mum and dad””. So, again, we should be talking about natural parents. Going on with my guiding philosophy of an amending Bill, I fail to see the need for subsection (1)(c) in the amendment, which is a repetition of Section 1(3) of the 1991 Act. I do not understand what the noble Lord is getting at with subsection (1)(d). Even after listening to him quite carefully, I still do not understand. For example, what position would he like to see in regard to adopted children or children in care? It seems that neither group is to be covered by CMEC, although the Minister will correct me if I am wrong. On subsection (2) in the amendment, I accept that paragraphs (b) and (c) are what Schedule 4 is all about, but I find it difficult to accept paragraph (a). The obligations to birth children may not be extinguished but, under Schedule 4, they can be reduced quite substantially, as we will be discussing later. Paragraph (d) fails to take into account divorce proceedings. I do not know what proportion of children qualify as a result of divorce because, as I understand it, the CSA does not collect such figures—again, if I am wrong, I am sure the Minister will correct me—but it must be a fair number. In any event, the Bill currently anticipates that child maintenance as a result of a divorce settlement will be binding for at least one year. As later amendments will show, I hope to persuade the Minister that this is far too short a period. I could go on but I feel that I would be doing the Grand Committee no favours by taking the Minister any further than the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, has already done. With this amendment is grouped Amendment No. 3, which, as the noble Lord said, is an attempt at a sunset clause. It is not yet right but he assures us that, come the next stage of the Bill, he will put it right and be very firm on the subject. Sunset clauses are all very well if used judiciously. If, however, one is setting up a new organisation, as we are here, I do not believe that giving it only four or five years of life is the least bit sensible. Even with the transfer of staff, which we shall discuss in a moment, it will take a couple of years to bed down. That is inevitable with a new organisation, but it will give very little time before new legislation is required under this amendment. I am sure that with all his parliamentary experience the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, must know that legislative opportunities do not grow on trees. A slot in the programme has to be fought for against competition from all other departments of state, and there is no guarantee of getting one in any particular year. What, then, is the noble Lord’s solution to continuing child maintenance after 2015 if the Government of the day cannot find time for replacement legislation? I do not want to be unduly alarmist but all sorts of things might need to be enacted in 2014. Then, come the following 1 January, there will be no modern system of child maintenance by absent parents and, presumably, as the CSA is killed off by this Bill, we will not even be able to go back to the old system under the CSA. To sum up, I do not believe that this group of amendments adds anything to what we already have in the one-and-a-third Acts plus this Bill.