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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

My Lords, the support and information service cannot guarantee to be in touch with every separating parent. As we discussed in Committee, there will be specific arrangements for parents with care on benefit who come into the system and stay in the system to be encouraged to use the information and support service. If they do not take up that opportunity, there will be a direct approach from the service to those individuals. Those opportunities will arise for those on jobseeker’s allowance, for example, because not only will an individual make an application but there is ongoing contact under the arrangements for the receipt of that benefit, driven through conditionality. Even in relation to people on income support, the claim is refreshed from time to time, generally no less than on an annual basis, so there will be opportunities for those individuals to be specifically targeted by the information and support service. Beyond that, the information and support service will be engaged in a wide range of activities in putting information on the website and in leaflets and in working with arrangements that DCSF is generating to support parents more generally. There will be a whole raft of opportunities. It is absolutely right that parents with care and non-resident parents should be aware of what the statutory system provides. In due course, they need to be aware that it is effective in delivering as well. I do not diminish the challenges that the service faces, but I believe that there is a robust approach to making sure that the people about whom we are all concerned can genuinely be reached. More detailed guidance for the commission on its operational parameters will come through non-statutory arrangements, such as the framework document, which is the foundation for relationships between NDPBs and their sponsoring departments, and the commission’s business plan, which the department must approve. On a more technical drafting note, I can advise the noble Lord that the deletion of the second subsidiary objective would result in the removal of any reference to the requirement to pursue accrued debt in the objectives, a matter that has been of particular concern in your Lordships’ House, certainly in Committee. While removing this reference would not remove the commission’s statutory obligations to secure compliance under the Child Support Act 1991, it would reduce the visibility of this requirement in the primary legislation. To that extent, it would be unhelpful. Amendment No. 2 would add a third subsidiary objective. As I have outlined, we do not believe that that is necessary, as there is already provision requiring the commission to support statutory applications in Clause 2(2)(b). Furthermore, we do not believe that reintroducing an automatic link between the statutory service and social security benefits should form part of the new child maintenance system’s objectives. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, was also clear on that. We recognise that the customers of HMRC and Jobcentre Plus will be an important client group of the statutory service. As I discussed in Grand Committee, the shadow body is working closely with Jobcentre Plus and HMRC to ensure that newly separated parents on both benefits and tax credits can be identified and referred across to the information and support service. For the reasons that I have outlined, I say to my noble friend that her question has been dealt with. I reiterate that our preference is to have voluntary arrangements where appropriate because we believe that that will be the most effective way of sustaining maintenance arrangements. However, there will be a clear obligation to support applications to the statutory system where that is not the case. It would be difficult logically to have phraseology that encouraged two, in a sense, mutually exclusive circumstances. I believe that we have the right balance. This is about a level playing field; it is not about saying that, where it is not appropriate for people to have voluntary arrangements, they will not be supported into the statutory system.