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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

I start by thanking both noble Lords for the enthusiasm with which they have received the amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, asked whether we are jumping the gun because we have not worked out how this is going to work or whether it will require a change to the rules of court. The answer is that it will not. This is an alternative to an amendment to the rules of court. We need to talk through some of the practicalities: the nature of the forms on which disclosures are made and the extent to which they may or may not refer to the fact that disclosure can be made to the commission. It is that sort of practical issue that needs to be worked through and talked through with the powers that be rather than any concern about whether the provision is fundamentally effective. We are confident that it is. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, asked why we need the word ““reasonably””. As the noble Lord will know better than me, the disclosures made in the proceedings that we are talking about could cover a range of issues, not all of which will necessarily be relevant to the functions of the commission. It is right that a proper judgment has to be made by the person making them available to the commission. The noble Lord asked whether that would exclude debt collectors. The note that I have from the Box is that it would because the calculation would precede the allocation of a case to debt collectors. A caveat to that is that part of the information that might be disclosed might be the location of a non-resident parent and such information would be highly relevant to a debt collection process. If I need to write further on that, I will, but in some circumstances it could be made available. If at some stage in the future the maintenance calculation itself is contracted out, in whole or in part, it is right that the person providing those services has that disclosure rather than the commission, or in addition to the commission. The noble Lord asked about the Scottish provisions. Those provisions were provided by Scottish legal advisers. We merely need to refer back to them and give the noble Lord a more detailed response. He also asked whether new subsection (6) is a get-out. We do not believe that it is, but it is a vital safeguard. Sensitive information, perhaps relating to a new relationship or some such detail, could be disclosed in proceedings—it is difficult to define precisely what that might be—but it is right that there is an opportunity for those provisions to be excluded in those circumstances. However, we do not believe that the exclusion should be used willy-nilly. There would have to be good and proper reason for relying on that provision. I hope that has dealt with each of the questions raised. This is an important provision. The noble Lord is absolutely right: we are aware that some judges are not best pleased with this. We thought we might discuss that this afternoon and be able to allay some of the concerns. At the end of the day, we should recognise that, under the regulations already in force, the sort of disclosures we are talking about can already be obtained by a request from the commission, in some instances requiring the consent of the court. If that is not obtained, there is a bit of a grey area about whether, if the request has been made and complied with but without the consent of the court, that is contempt of the court. As a practical matter, I do not believe that that point has ever been taken up. If it is relevant to the functions of the commission, it is difficult to see that it might be. Therefore, that information could already be requested. Here, we are dealing with facilitating arrangements, particularly where there is voluntary disclosure by the parent with care or the non-resident parent, to remove some of the jeopardy that they currently suffer because of the complexities of the rules. On Question, amendment agreed to. Clause 37 [Disclosure of information to credit reference agencies]: