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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

My Lords, I am afraid that I am not particularly enamoured by Amendment No. 14 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood. It would make the abolition of Section 6 of the Child Support Act 1991—which, as he said, requires all parents with care claiming income support or income-based jobseeker’s allowance also to claim child support—conditional. The lifting of the Section 6 requirement would, according to the amendment, be subject to a review after three years. This review would be laid before Parliament to establish, in respect of parents with care on benefit, whether their overall position in relation to the receipt of adequate child maintenance had improved, deteriorated or, as the noble Lord said, remained the same. I have difficulty with the amendment because I think that it enforces too rigid requirements on parents. Although the Government have an obligation to protect vulnerable citizens—indeed, someone said to me the other day that they are almost a replacement parent in some social security/DWP circumstances—we must not let their parental roles transform the country into a nanny state. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, may point out that there is a risk that when the legal obligation to seek statutory child maintenance is abolished for all parents, the number of parents with care on benefit who receive child maintenance may actually decrease from the already low figure of 156,000. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, made the same point. I think we should recognise that the provision for child maintenance has not gone—the parent has simply been given the choice whether to use CMEC. I can only assume that the responsible and sensible parent will, indeed, claim. For the Government to keep an eye on the private maintenance arrangements—of which, as I said, I am not nearly as suspicious as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis—made by those on benefit, as the amendment demands, there must be a voluntary register. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, did not take in that in Committee the Minister said repeatedly that no such register will exist, although I sincerely regret that and do not think that the Minister shone his usual thoughtful light on this subject. The basic problem, which was almost identified by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, is that the Minister—wrongly, I believe—is adamant that there should be no register of voluntary maintenance arrangements. Therefore, how will it be possible for the Secretary of State to prepare the report proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, in new subsection (2) of his amendment? I remain of the opinion that there should be a way of creating such a register but, even with the length of time that the Bill has taken to get to this stage—we are squeezing against a particularly nasty wire in another place, as the Minister recognises only too well—I have been unable, with the limited resources at my disposal, to find a way to achieve it. Only the Government, with their army of officials, can do that and, regrettably, not only did they not, but they will not do it. I am sure that my great party, in government, will indeed succeed in this. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, that this subject remains on the agenda, but I am afraid a little patience is required. Further, if this Bill is to succeed, we must invest trust in its proposals. If CMEC is to encourage a voluntary sector of child maintenance payments as an alternative to statutory child maintenance payments, the Government must wholeheartedly stand behind their commitment and not temper voluntary arrangements with surreptitious control. This amendment could endanger the anticipated parental enthusiasm and commitment to the new arrangements as a result of state diktat, which, in part, is why the CSA failed. The result would surely be the worst of both scenarios. Until we have a voluntary register, I am afraid the issue is dead.