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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

My Lords, I thank each of the noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. It has been short but we have a shared vision that we want this to work, particularly for vulnerable parents and children. Clearly, we take different views on some key issues. Removing compulsion by repealing Sections 6 and 46 of the Child Support Act 1991 is the first step in moving to a new system of child maintenance. Compulsion was originally introduced as a means of recovering benefit expenditure and overturns any arrangements that may already be in place, even where these are working perfectly well. Forcing parents to use the state system in this way can result in conflict between parents. We know from our research that many parents would prefer to make their own child maintenance arrangements. As we have discussed extensively, both in Committee and last week, the information and support service will be made available to help parents make their own arrangements and the right decision. Those who do not want to use the statutory maintenance scheme will no longer be required to do so. Parents with care applying for benefit will have their details referred to the information and support service by Jobcentre Plus. If they choose to use the service, all the options available to them will be explained. Parents will be free to make a voluntary arrangement or an application to the statutory maintenance scheme. Amendment No. 14 would mean that the repeal of Section 6 and Section 46 of the Child Support Act 1991 would only have permanent effect if, three years from commencement, the Secretary of State demonstrated in a report to Parliament that the new arrangements for child maintenance were successful. The measure of success would be whether more parents with care on benefit were receiving child maintenance, and whether the average amount of maintenance pay had increased. I sympathise with the noble Lord’s view that we should monitor the effect of the changes in the approach to child maintenance, and we will do so. There is already a requirement on the commission to report annually on how it is meeting its strategic objectives, its current performance against objectives and targets, and how efficiently and effectively it is exercising its different functions. We have discussed that. My noble friend Lady Hollis expressed the concern that the information and support service will be squeezed out in due course and that the commission will look to reduce its caseload. This will be very much directed by the targets and framework that the sponsoring department, the DWP, puts in place. It is up to us to make sure that, if that were in the mind of the commission, it does not, and is not allowed to do it. That is clearly the intent. To go further than this, as the proposed amendment suggests, fails to recognise that it takes time to implement such fundamental change for child maintenance, and for the full extent of the benefits to be realised and recognised. We have set out a staged plan for the implementation of the changes within the Bill, which we believe will cumulatively deliver significant benefits for parents and children, but these changes are not due to be fully concluded until 2013. Indeed, the new basis of assessment will not operate until 2010, so to set a decision point within three years of the first change would be to create an artificial assessment. The full range of change planned would not have had time to be implemented and bed in, nor would the benefits have been able fully to feed through. I believe that the amendment springs from concern that some parents may feel pushed and pressurised into agreeing voluntary arrangements whereas, in fact, they might be better off staying in the statutory scheme; or that if people leave the statutory maintenance scheme we will have no way of knowing what has happened to them or whether an effective arrangement is in place. We take the view that those concerns, although understandable, are unfounded. The commission’s objectives are drafted in a manner that requires it to maximise effective arrangements for all children who live apart from one or both of their parents. If we accepted the amendment, movement to the new system might be further delayed, as we could not be clear what system parents would be moving into. All parents, regardless of their benefit status, should have the option, supported by the commission where necessary, to decide what are the best maintenance arrangements for them, and, most importantly, their children. Forcing them back into the statutory maintenance system would take that choice away from them. Amendment No. 13 proposes that Clause 15 be removed altogether. I suspect that this amendment is to enable any further discussion that noble Lords may want to have on the subject, but removing Clause 15 would prevent the repeal of Sections 6 and 46, and leave parents with care on benefit with no real choice as to how they arrange maintenance for their children. Providing parents with choice and promoting parental responsibility is a key part of the changes that we are making to the child maintenance system. We are moving to a child maintenance system that promotes greater parental responsibility, provides parents with more choice and enables and empowers them to make their own arrangements for child maintenance; and away from a system that was seen to exist to secure child maintenance as a means of recovering benefit expenditure. The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, raised issues about the register of private agreements. The White Paper made clear that there were arguments both for and against a register and that the commission needed to take a view on whether to have one, with the concept of having a pilot. So we have not ruled it out; it is something on which we wish the commission to reflect.