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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

My Lords, clearly the Minister, his colleagues, the relevant section of the department and the CSA do not see this as a problem. However, he has not argued against my basic thought. It is inconsistent to state that a parent’s obligation to maintain a child is not dependent on whether they have contact and then to produce a provision that encourages parents to limit the amount of contact a non-resident parent has with a child in order to maintain a certain level of financial support. There is a basic inconsistency. I should perhaps have said that this is a probing amendment; I take the chiding that he gave me earlier on the placing of an amendment in the Bill, but it was a hook on which to hang my thoughts and statements. There is a question that ought to be answered at some point. It is not appropriate to answer it today, but it would be helpful if the Minister could write me one of his compendious letters on the subject before the next stage of the Bill. Under the current regime, I understand that there is the one-night trigger point, which starts from the very beginning of the maintenance assessment. He said that, if agreement is subsequently achieved, the changes will be made in consultation with the stakeholders. I think that I remember his words correctly, but he can check his notes. If that is so, there must be some record somewhere of how often that has been achieved. I would like to know the answer to that.