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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

I am not sure that ““comforted”” is yet the right word. I will have to consider this really quite carefully. My initial thoughts are that, although it is totally appropriate to seek to get the consent of the parent with care before writing off the debt that was due usually to her, this should not be an out-and-out veto, because otherwise the commission would continue to be landed with uncollectible debt because of a veto of the parent with care. I therefore reserve my position. The same applies to the transfer of arrears. The Minister’s definition of the expression clearly means something rather different from mine when I came into the Grand Committee this afternoon. I shall look at this very carefully, because as I said I have some slight initial reservations about the consultation with the parent with care.