---

Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for these amendments, which, again, give us an opportunity to discuss a very important issue. As we have heard, the underlying purpose of Amendments Nos. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 appears to be to extend the remit of the commission from a body focused on securing effective child maintenance arrangements to one that also promotes the full responsibilities of parenthood. That includes matters relating to health development and welfare and the promotion of ““parental care””. I sympathise with noble Lords’ intentions. I know—this was cited by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay—that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, has raised these issues with my noble friend Lord Adonis, particularly in the context of the Children and Young Persons Bill. I also understand the noble Lord’s desire to discuss more broadly the Government’s role in promoting parental responsibility—in particular, whether legislation would be the best route to communicate with parents who are uncertain of their parenting responsibilities. As my noble friend Lord Adonis made clear in that debate, the Government fully recognise the need to respond to parents who fail to take seriously their parental responsibilities. We fully accept that some parents need advice and assistance, and the Government are steadily improving the quantity and quality of the services that are available. However—and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Addington—I do not believe that this Bill or this commission is the right home for these provisions as there is a real risk that they will dilute the effort of the commission from its primary purpose of promoting child maintenance and, in particular, ensuring that parents take financial responsibility for the maintenance of their children. It is for the same reason that I cannot accept the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, which would restrict the commission’s ability to promote to parents their responsibility for providing child maintenance. This would limit the commission’s options for maximising the number of effective child maintenance arrangements that are in place. I am sure that this is not what the noble Lord intended, given the importance of this in combating child poverty. Although I must disappoint noble Lords on the specifics of their amendments, I can perhaps provide some solace by recognising that we see a clear link between parental responsibility with regard to child maintenance and in its broader sense. In addition, I stress that the commission will clearly need to be understanding of, and sensitive to, the emotional environment that separated parents face. This will inevitably be part of the context in which it will operate and the prospect of maximising the number of effective maintenance arrangements will undoubtedly be increased if the relationship between separating parents is conducive to discussion, engagement and negotiation. I know that the Centre for Separated Families has been engaged in helping to train staff in delivering the information and support service for this very reason. It will be in the interests of the commission and its objectives to have some understanding of this wider context, but I would expect the commission to encourage such engagement anyway as part of a cross-government approach to supporting parents. We will encourage the commission to work alongside other organisations dealing with similar issues. We provide for that in the Bill. Clause 7 gives the commission power to enter into arrangements with other agencies and Clause 5 places a requirement on the commission to provide parents with the necessary information and guidance to secure an effective child maintenance arrangement. We would see that as including referring and signposting them on to other organisations that can help on issues related to separation, family breakdown and parental responsibility. This is not the limit of our ambitions, but the lesson of past reforms to the child support system is that we should walk before we can run. I would also point out that the development of the information and support service, which we have discussed at some length in Grand Committee, demonstrates how we are already working closely with other government departments and bodies, particularly the Department for Children, Schools and Families, which have the cross-government policy lead on family policy issues. We intend the commission to engage fully in cross-government work on services for parents and children and I am pleased to say that the chair-designate of the commission, in particular, is already having an enormous influence in shaping developments in this area. Perhaps I can say more about supporting vulnerable parents. We have always fully recognised the importance of that, particularly those whose children are at most risk of poverty. From the outset, this awareness has underpinned key parts of the legislation and reform system that we are putting in place. The information and support service is the primary component of the new system to protect parents on low incomes. We are putting arrangements in place with Jobcentre Plus and HMRC to ensure that as many parents as possible claim and renew their benefits and tax credits and are proactively guided towards the information and support service. Secondly, we are establishing a large-scale, high quality national helpline service—in certain circumstances, a face-to-face service—so that parents can get helpful information on the different options for child maintenance. Thirdly, those services will support both parental decision-making and parents acting on the decisions that they make—for example, by transferring them across to the CSA, sending out a standard voluntary maintenance form to help them record and maintain the arrangement, and helping parents understand what level of maintenance they could be entitled to through the CSA. Fourthly, many parents will need the statutory service, which is why we are focusing on further improvement to the operational efficiency of the statutory scheme and increasing the powers available to CMEC against those parents who refuse to pay. The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, pressed me on progress with my noble friend Lord Adonis, particularly in relation to the red book. It is absolutely right that my noble friend undertook to look at extending the principle behind the red book, which is given to every parent to track their child’s health development through the first years of its life, by exploring how we can develop a personal parent-led record that will run from birth to 11. It could ensure that parents have direct access to the critical information that they need to support the development of their child. This could be a universal tool to enable children’s practitioners and parents to identify issues early and seek prompt referrals. I will have to report more specifically on precisely what progress that approach has made to date, and I am happy to do that in writing. My noble friend Lord Adonis also undertook on Report to seek to ensure that the elements which form the definition of supportive parenting in the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, are promoted in guidance. It is the Government’s view that we are more likely to help every parent to do the best for their child through programmes that support parents and can draw as appropriate on effective guidance and support, rather than making changes to primary legislation. I hope that I have covered each point that noble Lords have made. I shall say a little more about the work of the Department for Children, Schools and Families, with which the commission is engaged. This is in relation to a project called Parent Know How, a DCSF initiative aimed at delivering better outcomes for children and parents through access to the information, advice and guidance that they need to support them in their parenting role. The initiative has a particular focus on meeting the needs of parents who are not as well served by current sources of help as they could be. These groups include parents of disabled children, fathers from all backgrounds and parents of teenage children. The service is made up of seven helplines, where funding is provided to organisations such as Parentline Plus and One Parent Families. There are also 11 new channel services, including text messaging, social media and websites including Dadspace, a social networking website aimed at fathers, and the Single Parent Action Network—or SPAN—a nationwide network of one-parent families and self-help groups aimed at families living in poverty and isolation, empowering them to improve their lives and life chances. We recognise that the information support service will particularly need to reach out to groups that research shows can struggle to access the information and support they need. We are working closely with DCSF, as I outlined earlier, to ensure that the information support service is joined up to the parenting services by links to several of the new websites dealing with family relationships and networking, and self-help groups. We will also signpost parents to Parent Know How’s range of helplines. I hope that that outlines the range of activities that the commission is intended to be involved in, and is involved in, as part of the wider government approach to support for parenting. We do not see the merit of expanding in primary legislation definitions around parental responsibility. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, in particular, accepted that guidance was a real and effective route in taking forward those broader messages. Having said that, I hope that noble Lords will feel satisfied about the focus that the Government have on wider issues around parents’ responsibilities, how we are engaged in that, and the niche role of the commission in working alongside that without detracting from its primary obligation: to ensure that more maintenance is delivered to more children.