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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

That is very helpful. The CSA does not quite come to a grinding halt as late as I thought, but much earlier. I understood the Minister to say that the main reason for making CMEC a Crown body was because of the wishes of the staff. I hope that that means that the Crown status will be sufficient to retain talented staff. If not, the whole thing will be somewhat obviated. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, produced a couple of amendments that I have great difficulty with. Amendment No. 4 appears to mean that the Bill cannot be commenced until the operational improvement plan for the CSA has been completed, or, as the amendment says, ““achieved””. When I first saw it I thought it was a probing amendment to ascertain where the operational improvement plan, instigated by Mr Geraghty, had got to and whether it applied to CMEC as much as to the CSA. Again, perhaps we will get an answer to that from the Minister. I do not believe, though, that if we finish our debates on the right and fair use of sanctions—some of which, as later amendments show, are in contention—we should delay the commencement of the Bill any longer than strictly necessary, having regard to the parliamentary timetable. We know already that the staff are due to be transferred from the CSA to CMEC, but I cannot at this moment see that the Bill will require any more or any fewer of them. ““Will the staff level complement go up or down?”” is a rough, rapid translation of what I have just said. Were we to end up with more tribunals, for example, that would probably mean extra staff. However, I anticipate that they would be extra-curricular with regard to CMEC, so would not fit into the amendment. Some activities, such as debt collection and the advisory service, are to be outsourced to private sector firms such as Ventura. I am grateful to the Minister for advising me of that latter arrangement. It makes sense, but it has not been explained exactly what Ventura is to do. It would not be fair to ask exactly what is in the contract, but I hope that by the time we finish Committee we will know at least what the intentions are of using Ventura. I hope that how to maintain the tripartite relationship between separated parents and children will be part of its remit. Indeed, I have an amendment later on to that effect. Amendment No. 14 is in this group. We know already that staff are due to be transferred wholesale from the CSA to CMEC, but I cannot at this moment see that the Bill will require—I apologise, that is a repetition of what I just said. The Minister has been generous in stopping after explaining his group of amendments before going on to comment on those of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, so I must not outstay my welcome. I would be grateful to receive as many answers to my questions as he feels he can usefully give me at the moment.