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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

As the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, said, this group of amendments considers the use and publication—to whom and where—of information. On Amendment No. 76, we on this side feel that furnishing all parties in these matters with the most accurate information concerning the payments would be beneficial. However, placing a duty on the commission to produce detailed quarterly statements seems to be overkill and is potentially too much of a burden. The commission’s primary concerns of supporting maintenance arrangements and ensuring that parents comply with their obligations should be its priority. We had long discussions on Clauses 1 and 2 on Tuesday last week. We do not want to risk overburdening the commission with too many obligations that might distract from those priorities, as laudable—I say that with due deference to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood—as these obligations might be. Of course, dissemination of this sort of information might prove useful at some stage. I wonder whether the Minister feels that one of the causes of the breakdown in payments of child maintenance is indeed a lack of information. If he feels that, it seems to me perfectly obvious that we need to do something or we need to amend the Bill in some way to try to solve that problem. On my Amendment No. 83, I sought advice on the drafting from Resolution—the Solicitors Family Law Association. This amendment considers the issue of disclosure of information to the parent with care. As the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, said, under the current provisions and under the proposed system the parent with care is powerless to advise the committee whether she believes the maintenance calculation has been carried out correctly because she simply does not know. That is due to the fact that only very limited income detail is provided to the parent with care—the information used in the assessment process. First, I would like to consider the issues that lie behind the need for this amendment. It goes almost without saying that child maintenance is paid to the parent with care to support the child. The detailed information used in the process, in particular the income of the non-resident parent, is not provided to the parent with care, so that person has to rely on the commission to obtain all necessary information from all relevant sources. When the calculation has been carried out, the parent with care is deprived of the opportunity to check that the information given is correct or complete and, therefore, cannot evaluate whether the commission has made an appropriate decision by reference to the information provided. I anticipate the Minister telling me that the information of the parent with care on the financial circumstances of her former partner—or his former partner—is likely to be out of date after a period. Yes, I am sure it is, but none the less, here I am interested in the original calculation and the very recently separated parent with care will have a very good idea of the financial circumstances in the case of her former partner. It is my opinion that the provision of information to the parent with care would assist in the purpose of bringing about effective maintenance arrangements for children. The current and proposed systems provide an opportunity for the non-resident parent to seek to misrepresent their circumstances to reduce maintenance liabilities. Obvious examples include where the non-resident parent has failed to disclose the true extent of income or of any second income that he may receive. Later we shall discuss what income means, but for the moment I shall leave it there. No safeguards are provided to the parent with care as that person is completely excluded from the information-gathering exercise. Detailed information is, however, provided to the parent with care if an appeal is lodged, as the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, says, which means that the parent with care has no alternative but to lodge such an application if the level of the maintenance calculation is in their mind in question. That unnecessarily increases the workload of the appeal tribunal. I would like the Minister to give me an explanation why such detail can be provided at the appeal stage, but not at the time of the initial calculation. It seems more than illogical to me. As an analogy to the child support system, in the court process where financial matters fall to be considered, there has to be full and frank disclosure between the parties supported by documentary evidence. That continues to apply if, for example, the parties have to return to court years later for spousal maintenance to be reconsidered. The spouse seeking financial support from the ex-partner is entitled to be provided with full financial information about that person's income. Child maintenance is a similar form of financial support and I query why spousal maintenance should be treated any differently from child maintenance. My Amendment No. 201 follows up the amendment that I have just discussed at, I am afraid, some length, in a bid to end any secrecy or misinformation surrounding child maintenance negotiations. Does the Minister not agree that it seems unjust that civil servants working within the commission are allowed access to information that a parent with care chasing maintenance for the benefit of their child or children is not?