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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

I am sorry to raise a couple of questions at this late stage. This is obviously a welcome concession as far as it goes. There is no doubt about that, and the Minister deserves credit for introducing it. However, the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, was talking about applications for variations. I would like some more consistently collected information on applications for variations. Although there are people who make applications, there are more important questions about the follow-through: the number of applications for variations that are accepted by CSA decision-makers, the numbers then taken to appeal and the outcome of those appeals. Although I accept that there may be a flurry of activity where there is nothing to lose, in the red rage that parents with care often get into, they will—if they know about it—make an application just on the basis that it is the only thing available to them, with no real prospect of success. We should be careful and monitor how the variation provisions pan out in practice when this legislation is in steady state. I have already welcomed the amendment, and I may have misunderstood this but it will still put the burden on the parent with care to bring a variation application before the commission can intervene to give them access to the provisions in the new clause. We had discussions about this earlier. The amendment will not help such a parent with care unless she is alerted to the fact that an application for a variation might be appropriate. Indeed, although the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, was evincing surprise that there was a big number—it is a big number in absolute terms—in proportion to everything else it is modest. We should be quite clear in this new system about what entitlements and abilities there will be for parents with care to make variation applications. Unless I have misunderstood this, and I hope I have—if I have, someone will put me right—this does nothing to help the parent with care to know whether she has a chance of taking advantage of the new powers in Amendment No. 101. Welcome though they are, they will not do the job for that reason.