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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

I do not know the intricacies of this system. It is not something that I have specialised in; but it is very distressing to have a situation where there is a declaration at the beginning of the existing legislation, as the noble Lord confirmed. My noble friend said what the purpose of the existing legislation is, yet some 881,300 absent parents are in default. As we all know this is a scandal—an absolute disgrace and a complete failure of all of us. Are the Government and my noble friend right—after all he was in government and sees the problems as the Minister sees them—to turn down the idea of a more detailed declaratory clause at the beginning of the Bill? It would make the point that the Bill is about children and their welfare, not just about money getting to children, and the fact that they must share in the standard of living of both parents, whether they are present or not. Is that not a good idea? We should not close our minds to that. I have always had a great respect for the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood—he was an MP in the Borders of Scotland. He knows a lot about this subject in detail. A bit of imagination in the Bill would remind us that it is about children as a whole, not just about money flowing to them. This business should not be just about cash. It has got to be about what absent parents do for their children. Perhaps the Minister could think a little harder about this. The amendment may not be proposing the right declaratory clause—it has already been suggested that it probably is not—but it is not necessarily a thoroughly bad idea.