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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, in the style in which he has introduced this group of amendments. Clause 2 is the core and kernel of the Bill. It enshrines the objectives of the commission and therefore, if we get that wrong, the commission will have less chance in succeeding in producing the policy outcomes to which we aspire. We have four important groups of amendments on that. There was one in our last Committee day on debt, here we are looking at voluntary agreements, and we will go on to discuss child poverty and definitions of key terms in Amendments Nos. 31 and 37. This is part of what I consider to be an important probing of what is in the Government’s mind on the setting of objectives for the commission. I concur with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, said on Amendment No. 26, but this is also an opportunity to allow us to test the claims that are in the regulatory impact assessment. In particular, I would like further information, if there is any extant, on the estimated rise of 40 per cent in the number of parents making voluntary arrangements. It is anticipated to rise from 500,000 to 700,000. That is a key part of the business plan. I guess the Minister will cleave to the view that the business plan is for the commission, but it is important and significant, and we need to get some confirmation that the figures that have been there for some time are still robust. In particular, is it the currently held view in the department that there will be a saving in administrative costs of something like £200 million? That is an important part that lies behind the amendment moved so ably by the noble Lord. The noble Lord is right to stress that poorer parents are those who will have to struggle most to come to a satisfactory voluntary agreement, if anyone does at all. Yet, that is the group that will pose the most difficultly to the statutory administration and that is where the cost of collection of the maintenance is disproportionate to the amount that it wins back by way of the amount recovered. Therefore, there is a predisposition to think that there is other, lower-hanging fruit that the commission could access more easily, thereby meeting targets faster, and there is obviously, rightly, a temptation to strive to do that. If CMEC and the commission are doing what we hope they will, the Section 6 client group—the people who will be invited to contemplate voluntary arrangements for the first time—are almost certainly going to be better off if CMEC is working properly. It will act as an intermediary, and it will have a firm hand, especially at the start. Bear in mind that we are not just talking about families at the point of breakdown. Often relationships stabilise after a breakdown and then, after some months, if not years, the relationship turns hostile again and the two parents have to do some reconciliation of their respective financial positions. It is not just once and for all; we could be contemplating a pretty continuous process. I have looked at the Bill’s wording carefully, upside, downside and sideways, and it demonstrates what I consider to be a deliberate bias in the duty to encourage appropriate voluntary arrangements. That is obviously part of the Government’s policy, but no such equivalent duty exists to encourage statutory arrangements. I cannot understand what it will cost the Minister to resist this kind of amendment, if he is going to do so. If he were disposed to accept the amendment, he could have the satisfaction that it would deal with the power imbalance in the relationship, which we all understand is likely to be the case in these circumstances. He will understand too that parents with care will very often settle for less than what they are due, because they will do anything for a quiet life. There may be violence at the end of any continued and sustained objection against a potentially violent non-resident parent. The Child Support Agency is in any case a pretty unpopular organisation, so staying out of its grasp is something that people may want to do if all other things are equal—again, for a quiet life. Finally, non-resident parents need to be sent a very strong signal that the Child Maintenance Enforcement Commission understands that they have a duty, knows where they live and will come to look for them if they do not do what is expected of them. The amendments in the group that suggest some changes and some rethinking there are essential. I will quote again from my favourite Australian of the month, Professor Patrick Parkinson, in the Times of 19 January, when he talked about the danger of our whole system becoming essentially voluntary. He said that was the gravest danger; that was the first thing that he pointed out. He said: "““The second danger is that the resident parent, usually the mother, ends up acquiescing to the first offer made [by the father] on the grounds that at least they will get it””." That is what we are facing. There has to be a duty on the commission to encourage the use of the statutory scheme. Amendments Nos. 26 and 32, if not perfect in their drafting, raise the question in a clear and stark way and I hope that the Minister will respond positively to them.