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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

My Lords, it may surprise some of your Lordships that my name is attached to this vast raft of government amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie. Supporting government amendments is not something in which I am particularly practised, even after all these years, but in this case I am delighted that the Minister has had the good sense to see that such measures are essential if the Bill is to represent sound practice, which is what we all want. The amendments revise the provision in the Bill that provides for CMEC administratively to disqualify a non-resident parent from holding or obtaining a travel authorisation should that person wilfully refuse, or culpably neglect, to pay child maintenance. This is an aspect of the Bill that these Benches, both here and in the other place, have strongly opposed from the start. I commend the Minister for listening not only to the Opposition but to the learned ruling of your Lordships’ Select Committee on the Constitution, chaired by my noble friend Lord Goodlad, who championed a series of amendments to this effect throughout the Bill’s passage. I supported my noble friend in Grand Committee not because I disagree with the Minister that the disqualification of a non-resident parent from holding or obtaining travel authorisation is a powerful and, in some cases, needed tool to encourage compliance with payment of child maintenance; I believe that CMEC should be very tough on those who shirk their responsibilities. However, I considered it lunacy to give CMEC a power that is properly held only by the courts. The Bill may have contravened Section 1(1) of the Immigration Act 1971, which confers a right on British citizens to come and go from the United Kingdom, "““without let or hindrance except such as may be … lawfully imposed on any person””," which I think I am right in saying are the words that appear in the back of a British—or, these days, EU—passport. However, I stand to be corrected. Whether that is the case or not, there was a dichotomy in the Bill that, while passports were to be removed by administrative action, CMEC would still have to go to the courts if it wished to remove the non-resident parent’s passport. I am only too relieved that the Minister has seen good sense and I fully support this group of amendments, which make the sanction of the removal of driving licences and passports the ultimate responsibility of the courts. I may have been less than fulsome in my praise of the Minister when he moved Amendment No. 9 late on Wednesday night after a difficult day in your Lordships’ House. The amendment was tabled in response to an amendment that I moved in Grand Committee—it was part of a large group of amendments—which concerned what should go in the annual report. He listened to what I said, agreed with it and acted on it. He has done the same today, for which I am extremely grateful.