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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for tabling the amendment, because it was a good place to start our deliberations on the Bill, although we had more of a Second Reading speech than a Committee speech. I am grateful for the forensic analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, much of which I agreed with. Let me try to deal with why we have structured the Bill as we have. As the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, will be aware, the amendments are unlikely to have a significant practical effect. The operation of the commission and the statutory maintenance system would continue to be governed by the objectives set out in Clause 2, together with the functions and rules laid out in the rest of the Bill. I believe that the noble Lord’s intention is, as he said, to propose a different starting place for our Bill—an entirely new piece of legislation centred around the legal right of children to maintenance and an obligation on parents to pay. Although I understand the argument behind that proposal, we should be clear that our objectives in this reform programme are more pragmatic. We do not apologise for that. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, asked: is this about children? Of course it is about children; it is all about children; it is all about making sure that we have more effective maintenance arrangements in place so that more money can be garnered for more children. That is exactly what the Bill is about. That is very clear from the objectives of the commission set down in Clause 2(1): "““The Commission's main objective is to maximise the number of those children who live apart from one or both of their parents for whom effective maintenance arrangements are in place””." That is exactly what it is about. Several noble Lords were saying that this should be a wider Bill about the welfare of children and parental responsibilities. Of course those are important issues. In a sense, the Bill is only one part of the package, but we will debate later how those wider issues are being picked up and addressed. Our primary focus, building on experience from the past under different Administrations, has been to find practical solutions to getting maintenance flowing. Whatever the Bill’s philosophical wraparound, if it does not work in practice, it will not deliver for children. That is what we are about. We are, for example, establishing a new body to administer the child maintenance system and building a new information and support service. I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, that the fact that it will be a Crown NDPB does not fundamentally change the distance of the arm’s-length arrangement with government, but I know that we will debate that under later amendments. We are about delivering a simplified assessment process and strengthening our enforcement powers. That approach is in line with the comprehensive review of the child maintenance system by Sir David Henshaw. He did not consider the structure of the legislation a problem and made no recommendations about the rights of children. The two key policy issues that he identified were the difficulties created by compulsion—that is, the link with benefit to which the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, referred—and the lack of an incentive to comply. We are dealing directly with both of those by removing the compulsory link with the benefits system and dramatically increasing the level of the maintenance disregard. However, I can assure the noble Lord that we are working with colleagues across government on joining up both policy and delivery. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, was interested in that point and I will say a little more about it later. One option that we can consider is the consolidation of child maintenance legislation, and with that a fresh look at the interventions with other provisions, such as the Children’s Act. Of course we will need to be an integrated part of the crucial work of the Department for Children, Schools and Families. Let me deal specifically with the challenge that we were wrong to start by amending the 1991 Act. Again, that was a practical decision. Two schemes are embodied in that Act, the current scheme and the old scheme. Most of the new measures in the Bill will apply to both schemes and will come into force in stages, so they will continue to run for a period. This makes it technically very difficult to introduce a new Act. Indeed, we have learnt the lessons of the past about big bang reform. However, we are planning to consolidate legislation for transparency once a single scheme is in force, and I believe that that is the right approach. Returning to the Bill, I hope that the noble Lord recognises that now is not the right time to attempt a more radical redrafting of the legislation. His Amendment No. 3 proposes terminating the existing arrangements, specifically the existence of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, in 2015. The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, spoke to this amendment. This would leave the child maintenance system with no delivery organisation. Given that we have yet to see the reforms outlined in this Bill implemented and that the Government have no proposals for a successor body, I do not believe it would be right to include such a provision in primary legislation. I want to say a few words about the rights of children. Making legislation which is expressed in terms of children having a right to maintenance would not make the law clearer or more effective. Certainty, I suggest, comes from the law creating a statutory scheme that sets out how the duty of ensuring that non-resident parents pay maintenance is calculated and enforced, and from the creation of a new body with clear objectives and duties. Since 2002, the Government have put in place a substantial body of legislation that serves to promote the well-being of children. This reflects the principles of the UNCRC and creates an effective national framework to support positive outcomes, the Children Act 2004 being the most important of these. Further, the Children’s Plan, published in December last year, builds on those reforms and sets out the Government’s ambition for improving the lives of children and young people over the next decade. But this Bill is about effective maintenance arrangements, making sure that the cash flows to children. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, ranged over a number of issues around arrears, residuary bodies and so forth. We shall pick each of those up in the course of our deliberations so I will not deal with them more specifically now. The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, asked why the previous schemes have failed and was a little pessimistic about the prospects for this one. I disagree with him on the latter point. There are a number of reasons which we could debate at length, such as the complexity of the IT systems, which were not up to scratch, and the effectiveness or otherwise of the enforcement powers, but in essence the agency was originally set up to draw back benefits for the Government. The lack of justice in that was perceived and people did not want to comply. This is different because it focuses on getting more children out of poverty, which I think will make a real difference. I have spoken for long enough on this amendment, and I ask the noble Lord to withdraw it.