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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

moved Amendment No. 96: 96: Clause 17, page 8, line 1, at end insert— ““( ) make provision that where there is a change in circumstances of the non-resident parent, the Commission shall make a fresh assessment if the gross income position of the non-resident parent increases or decreases by 10% from the gross income figure fixed by the calculation currently in force;”” The noble Lord said: Clause 17 states that a calculation can be reconsidered only if the parent’s income changes by 25 per cent or more. My amendments are not like the amendments we discussed in the previous group—that is, pernickety insistences on reviews and re-reviews. I very strongly feel that the bracket of 25 per cent before any change is made is too large. In essence, I said as much at Second Reading. From the non-resident parent’s point of view, if his income has decreased by, say, 20 per cent, to lose one-fifth of his income, without the ability to have the maintenance calculation reviewed, could place him in the position of being unable to make his child support payments and/or provide for himself and any second family who might exist. This proposed 25 per cent rule will also disadvantage the parent with care, who is often the most vulnerable party in child maintenance negotiations. If there is a substantial increase in income for the NRP by perhaps even 20 per cent, it would seem illogical that the parent with care cannot share in this increase and have the assessment revised to produce the maximum amount of money flowing to the child. I have tabled Amendment No. 98 on the advice of the Solicitors Family Law Association, Resolution. This provision would mean that no longer is it down to the non-resident parent to provide income information, but could be obtained by the commission direct from HMRC. Indeed, it should be done under the system proposed in the Bill. This amendment is tabled with the intention of producing quicker and potentially more accurate calculations than the Bill would produce. Does the Minister not also believe that it is imperative that the calculation, where possible, reflects the up-to-date income position of the NRP? This is a slight over-hang, and I might have asked the question during our tête-à-tête towards the end of the last group of amendments that I moved. I am convinced that this amendment would also assist in alleviating child poverty: in cases where the updated information shows an increase in the non-resident parent’s income, this will maximise any maintenance calculation. Amendment No. 97 was drafted by Gingerbread, and is very sensible. It is a probing amendment to prompt a discussion on how CMEC intends to avoid the situation where non-resident parents can get a reduction in their child maintenance, but only face a levelling-up in a year’s time when their liability is reset to the following year. Where, in a tax year, a non-resident parent’s child maintenance is assessed on current income or where he is required to pay only the flat rate of maintenance, the amendment would require CMEC to retrospectively check, using HMRC data, that during the tax year in question, the NRP’s actual income, as calculated for child support purposes, did not exceed the figure used to calculate his child maintenance by more than 25 per cent. If he did so, the non-resident parent should be made to pay the underpayment of liability. In another place, Ministers rejected an amendment which would have required non-resident parents to notify CMEC if their income rose by more than 25 per cent. A non-resident parent will be able to switch to a lower current-year assessment if he can show that his income has dropped by 25 per cent or if he claims benefit. There seems to be no CMEC mechanism for revising this reduction, even if it becomes apparent in retrospect that the reduction in income or period on benefit lasted for only a short while, perhaps while he was unemployed for three months. That lower assessment will continue to apply for the rest of the year and will be re-evaluated only in the following year when he could—I am ascribing motives to him, which I hope he would not have—do the same again. This is far from desirable and there is a plain danger of abuse. I beg to move.