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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

The amendments have given us an opportunity to debate an important part of the Bill. They would amend Clause 4, which places a duty on the commission to raise awareness among parents of the importance of taking responsibility for the maintenance of children and to make appropriate arrangements for securing that maintenance. The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, pressed again on definitions of maintenance. We had quite a wide-ranging discussion around that on Tuesday. The statutory system is very much geared to financial support. The Government are not saying that that is the end of maintenance and responsibilities; it is a much wider issue than that, as we discussed on Tuesday. The maintenance arrangements we are talking about here are concerned with the provision of finance and facilities if they are voluntary arrangements. Of course emotional support ought to be an integral part of supporting parents and that is what we would encourage both parents to provide for their children, but that emotional part is specifically, directly and deliberately not part of the Bill.