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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

I like objective clauses. We have normally failed to get them into a Bill but, where they have been put in, such as in the Education Act, they are enormously useful. I am not sure that the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, has this one entirely right, and I do not suggest that it is, but he asked why the previous two Child Support Acts have failed and why this one is going to fail, as I suspect it will. Perhaps we are not looking in the right place. The commission or its predecessors are effectively debt collectors. We all hate debts but we hate them much more if we think that they are unjust—that is, if we do not believe that they are based on a reasonable obligation. I suggest that the Government have to go right back to the beginning and make up their mind about what they, and the nation, believe to be the duties of parenthood and then start to educate people so that they understand that, if they have a child, whether carelessly or otherwise, they have certain relatively clearly defined responsibilities.