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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

Amendment No. 26 and the first part of Amendment No. 32 would require the commission to encourage applications to the statutory maintenance service in addition to and to the same extent as the commission is required to encourage appropriate voluntary arrangements. I want to be very clear on this. However, all other things being equal, we want to encourage people into voluntary arrangements as opposed to statutory ones where that is appropriate. It is not a question of a voluntary arrangement being superior to the statutory system and the statutory system being somehow second-class. That is not how we approach it. A key part of our reforms is based on the evidence that many parents would prefer to have a voluntary arrangement and that where this can be agreed between themselves, it is the best way forward. Voluntary arrangements can be tailored to the unique circumstances of the parents in question and are associated with higher compliance rates. But that is not to say that we do not recognise that for many parents arriving at voluntary arrangements will not be desirable or even possible. Certainly, in the specific circumstances that my noble friend Lady Hollis described, no one would wish to encourage voluntary arrangements in those situations. Amendment No. 32 would, "““require the Commission to have regard to the choices of individual parents””," unless there is a conflict, in which case the parent who wishes to use the statutory scheme shall have priority. I assure Members of the Committee that nothing in the objectives or the rest of the Bill prevents the parent with care or the non-resident parent from making an application to the statutory maintenance service at any time, including where there is an existing voluntary arrangement. Furthermore, I also confirm that the objectives, as drafted, do not require the commission to encourage voluntary arrangements when they are against either parent’s wishes or their best interests. We have built in two safeguards against this. First, as I have said, the commission can only encourage appropriate voluntary arrangements which are suitable to the circumstances of both parents, particularly in terms of the level of any arrangements. Secondly, everything the commission does must contribute to the achievement of its main objective to maximise the number of effective maintenance arrangements. Were the commission to encourage an arrangement that either party was unhappy with, it would be unlikely to work. In other words, it would not result in an effective arrangement. To encourage such an arrangement would put the commission in breach of its objectives. More specifically on some of the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and my noble friend Lady Hollis, none of us wants to push parents into arrangements that do not meet their needs. We want to encourage as many people as possible to have maintenance arrangements in place. It will be for parents to decide what sort of maintenance arrangement is most effective in meeting their responsibility for the maintenance of their children, and for the commission to provide information and guidance to help parents to do so. We recognise that pressure on one parent by the other is a potential risk in some cases. That is why we are establishing a service to provide both parents with impartial high-quality information to ensure that both parents can make informed choices about their child’s maintenance. If a separating parent feels that an enforceable arrangement is appropriate to their needs, they could go straight to the statutory scheme where they would be guided and supported to make a formal maintenance arrangement. My noble friend raised the issue of a registration system for voluntary arrangements. She will be aware that the plans for the new arrangements have been discussed. Such a system might be appropriate in the future, but we leave it to the commission to look at the possibility and to advise on it, possibly on some sort of piloting basis. It is not something which under the legislation we wish to impose from day one. Unequal bargaining power is a very real issue, and we recognise the risks involved. That is why the information and support services will be so important. As we discussed on Tuesday, if the parent with care has no idea what the income of the non-resident parent is, the automatic starting point would be an engagement with the statutory system. My noble friend asked how we know whether our child poverty targets are being met or contributed to by voluntary arrangements. We would use the various family surveys for that information, which are the same sources that we currently use for voluntary arrangements. The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, suggested that the strategy system was being portrayed almost as a second-rate service, to be used only if everything else fails. That is not how we approach it. We want a high-quality service and to make sure that it is available to parents if that is their end choice and they do not feel that voluntary arrangements are best for them. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, asked about figures for the increase in voluntary arrangements. The current business plan retains the increase of 200,000 to which he referred. Obviously the business plan is being refined as time progresses. We recognise that there are judgments in all this and in some of the underlying assumptions about how people will react to the new system and what their responses to it will be. On that basis, in steady state there would be an administrative saving of the order of £200 million. That figure is still in the system. The noble Lord referred to Professor Parkinson and his article in the Times. I, too, met him. He said that he did not think the article entirely reflected the view that he had expressed. In particular, I talked to him about his view of a voluntary system. I do not think he would maintain with the force that that article seemed to suggest that we should make the system entirely voluntary. That is absolutely not what we are doing. At the centre of these reforms is a determination to get an increased number of maintenance arrangements. That is the overriding objective of the commission and the Government. I hope that that has covered the issues that have been raised, but I am happy to have another go if noble Lords think that it has not.