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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 103 to 107, to which I put my name. They are in the centre of the two brackets: Amendments Nos. 102 and 220. As the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, said, transference has proved to be a veritable nightmare for the CSA. It would be helpful first to establish from the Minister not how many cases have been transferred but how many have not. I suspect that there are an awful lot. On Amendment 102, as I understand it, under the Bill, some non-resident parents will get an awful shock quite soon, because HMRC data will become available to CMEC and a reassessment will presumably be made. I am talking not so much about single transference as about, in a sense, double transference. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, is interested in transferring the original cases and the 2003 cases to the new CMEC formula under the Bill. Before that, an element of transference will be going on anyway. The Minister might say that it is not true transference, but it is certainly an alteration. I do not think that there is any doubt about that. The whole point of the amendments to which I have put my name is to understand exactly how the new scheme will take over from the old one. The last I heard was in a letter to someone, possibly even to me, from the Minister. It gave the impression that he did not have the slightest idea. He said that it would be a matter for CMEC when it got around to it. That, at least, was honest, and I am sure that he can confirm it today—although perhaps he would not like to use exactly the same words as I just did. With two different child maintenance payment schemes running concurrently at present, how can he assure the Committee that a third will not again cause hideous confusion for CMEC or, even worse, for the parents due for maintenance payments, whether those payments are in to the parent with care or out from the non-resident parent? That is extremely important. My real worry, though, lies not with the ensuing confusion so much as with the effects of that confusion. There is a possibility—not to put it any more strongly—that the non-resident’s liability for payment could be lost in the transition between the former scheme and the current scheme. Does the Minister see that in the same light as I do—does he see it as a problem? Does CMEC plan to put in place any mechanisms that will prevent that from happening? Can it, or he, guarantee some sort of transitional protection to parents as the commission implements yet another scheme? At present, regulations under Schedule 5 will be subject to negative resolution, as the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, said. That is on the basis that the process by which cases transfer will take around three years and that issues may emerge requiring changes to be made quickly. I agree, given the importance of transitional arrangements, that it is right that the regulations governing the process should receive the positive approval of Parliament before enactment. There should not be much difference in speed between affirmative resolution and negative resolution, except that regulations made under negative resolutions come into effect on the day that they are laid. I cannot imagine that the speed requirement will be such that four to six weeks would not be appropriate before the regulations came into effect. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, that this is such an important subject and will affect so many people that it is right that Parliament should discuss the regulations before they become operative. With regard to the prioritisation in Amendment No. 104, clearly the principles are not in any particular order. None the less, CMEC will have to have some idea of the order in which it will transfer the various cases. Does the Minister have any thoughts on that, or will he say yet again that it will be a matter for the commission? The interesting thing about Amendment No. 220 is that it is not necessary if the noble Lord and I get what he has suggested; namely, the affirmative procedure. I turn to Amendment No. 106. Paragraph 6(2)(c) of Schedule 5 will, "““prescribe circumstances in which liability under such a maintenance calculation is to be subject to a prescribed adjustment””." With all my reading, I have failed to understand quite what may be in the Minister’s mind. It would be extremely helpful to know. I shall have to await the Minister’s response to Amendment No. 105. I am sure that I shall be able to comment far better on it then.