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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

moved Amendment No. 101: 101: After Clause 17, insert the following new Clause— ““Determination of applications for a variation (1) Section 28D of the Child Support Act 1991 (c. 48) is amended as follows. (2) After subsection (2) insert— ““(2A) Subsection (2B) applies if— (a) the application for a variation is made by the person with care or (in the case of an application for a maintenance calculation under section 7) the person with care or the child concerned, and (b) it appears to the Commission that consideration of further information or evidence may affect its decision under subsection (1)(a) whether or not to agree to a variation. (2B) Before making the decision under subsection (1)(a) the Commission must— (a) consider any such further information or evidence that is available to it, and (b) where necessary, take such steps as the Commission considers appropriate to obtain any such further information or evidence.”” (3) In subsection (3), after ““duties”” insert ““, apart from the duty under subsection (2B)””.”” The noble Lord said: I was looking to see whether noble Lords had an appetite to close proceedings, but I am very happy to move Amendment No. 101 and to speak to Amendments Nos. 203 and 205. Amendment No. 101 places a duty on the commission to make investigations into any application for a variation from the parent with care where it is clear that further evidence would help the commission to decide whether a variation should be given. In Committee in the other place, a number of amendments were tabled concerning cases where non-resident parents manipulate their income and avoid a maintenance liability which properly reflects it. Although the Government rejected those amendments, we considered the representations that were made. We are aware that there is some dissatisfaction with how the variations process works and with how difficult it can be for a parent with care to provide the information needed to make a successful application. There are a number of obstacles either party may face when applying for a variation under the current scheme; for example, a lack of awareness caused by how the Child Support Agency currently functions. The parent with care and the non-resident parent are not initially informed of the variations scheme during the calculation process. If either feels strongly enough that the maintenance liability is unfair due to costs or income not taken into account, only then would the Child Support Agency inform the parties of the variations scheme. With that approach, if the parents have little or no contact with each other, the parent with care may never become aware that the non-resident parent’s liability does not accurately reflect his financial circumstances. Once an application has been made, there is still a sift process. At that point, the agency evaluates the grounds of the variation and assesses the level of information provided by the applicant. If they do not meet the minimum requirements, the application is sifted out and no further action is taken. The other party will never be informed of the application. While non-resident parents have such an incentive to provide information on their variation applications and reduce the liability, they do not have such incentive on applications made by the parent with care. That is why we want the duty-to-investigate provision to apply for the variation applications made by parents with care. Therefore we propose this amendment to the 1991 Act which will ensure that parents with care are able to secure variations where appropriate and will help to secure maintenance liabilities that more accurately reflect the non-resident parent’s financial circumstances. The commission will investigate applications by using information already held—for example, by HMRC—or it will seek information from other sources, such as accountants, employers or credit reference agencies. This change is part of a package of ways in which we can strengthen the variations scheme and overcome the obstacles faced when applying for a variation. We are also considering other changes that do not require primary legislation; for example, legally requiring non-resident parents to provide information about variation applications such that the non-resident parent would be subject to criminal sanctions if he or she did not comply. We are also looking into the feasibility of the commission developing a risk-profiling system to identify those non-resident parents who may have assets or income that could be the subject of a variation and to prompt the parent with care to apply for one. We also expect the commission to work to raise the profile of the variations scheme, especially at key points such as the initial calculation and the annual review. Amendments Nos. 203 and 205 are minor and technical. They allow the commission access to information held by HMRC for the purpose of functions relating to national insurance contributions. I beg to move.