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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

I concur with the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, and the way in which he has moved his amendment. We need to be careful as regards the figure of 25 per cent, which is a very steep cliff edge. In my Amendment No. 100, I suggest reducing the figure to 20 per cent. Under Amendment No. 99, there is scope for thinking about imposing a duty on the commission when constituted to come up with a low income protection scheme of some kind that is not too bureaucratic or onerous. That would give some comfort to those who have been following these proceedings and think that this is just a little bit of a bridge too far all in one go. Amendment No. 97 seeks to allow retrospective review of supersessions so that we can prevent misuse of some of the supersession rules. The arguments were not run earlier in the Public Bill Committee in the House of Commons, but this amendment is designed to allow discussion of how CMEC intends to avoid a 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 for the following year. In the Commons, Ministers rejected an amendment which would have required NRPs to notify CMEC if their income rose by more than 25 per cent. Again, we are trying to level up the playing field and put the parent with care in a stronger position. A lower assessment for an NRP would continue to apply for the rest of the year. It would be re-evaluated the following year when he could do the same again. There is a danger of potential abuse. The parent with care cannot apply for a variation because she has got no access to the financial information to which we have referred and have had discussions about earlier. In that circumstance, she is flying blind. Amendment No. 97 looks at ways to prevent misuse of that kind.