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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, for the amendment, which, as he said, seeks to extend the current period of 12 months during which parents with a court consent order for child maintenance may not apply to the commission for a maintenance calculation. The amendment would prevent those parents from applying for a period of four years. The existing 12-month rule applies when parents have a maintenance order or registered minute of agreement made on or after 3 March 2003. That rule has two main purposes. First, when agreement between parents breaks down it provides a swift and readily available route into the commission so that children are not left for considerable periods with either no maintenance or inadequate arrangements. Secondly, it encourages agreements that contain levels of child maintenance broadly consistent with the amount calculated under the statutory scheme and discourages agreements that divide property and assets between adults, leaving children without regular ongoing payments of child maintenance. I want to make it clear that the commission does not wish to intervene or disturb court orders that are working well. It is parents themselves who must decide whether or not their children’s interests are best served by the provision of a consent order, or by a maintenance calculation made by the commission, or by some other route. We do not wish to restrict any effective and agreed maintenance arrangements, in whatever form, to a year, four years or to any other period of time. The 12-month rule cannot of itself act to set aside a court order and substitute a statutory maintenance calculation. Only the action of one or both parents can do that. Our hope is that parents with effective court orders will not need to turn to the commission for a calculation under the statutory scheme. The agreements will continue and benefit the children for so long as both parents want them to. During the progress of this Bill, Ministers have listened to a number of differing, detailed arguments on the 12-month rule, both here and in another place. Some amendments have been tabled which propose to remove the 12-month rule altogether; others to extend it to a longer period. The debate throughout has been constructive, but on the issue of extending the 12-month rule I remain unconvinced. Primarily, I am not persuaded because this issue has not been raised—as far as I am aware—by clients of the CSA themselves. Generally, when parents who use the CSA—or want to use the CSA—are unhappy about its delivery, Ministers, and indeed MPs, are quick to hear about it. I have recently been provided, by the good offices of the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, and his colleagues in another place, with 15 items of correspondence from family lawyers—and I guess this is the correspondence shared with the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood—giving examples of cases where they believe the 12-month rule may not have helped their clients. However, bearing in mind that some 20,000 consent orders are made each year, this is not a great body of evidence and we would need significantly fuller information before we overturn something that appears to be working well and in the best interests of children. We want to encourage agreed, effective maintenance arrangements which provide ongoing support for children. As long as parents are happy that their arrangements are providing adequate maintenance for their children, they can continue. We consider that a 12-month period strikes the balance between giving court orders a chance to bed in and providing a means to resolve difficulties quickly and keep payments flowing. If things do go wrong, parents need the choice of a readily available route into the commission. My opinion is that a period of four years is too long to deprive parents of that choice. Parents and children should not be left, for considerable periods, locked into the court system when maintenance may or may not be paid or maintenance arrangements for children may no longer be adequate or working. Parents should have the ability to resolve these issues, gain access to the commission and get payments flowing quickly. The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, outlined an interesting example of what had happened. First, he assured us that the parties entering into that agreement were well aware of the 12-month rule and what the commission’s arrangements would offer. I suppose the point is that if the non-resident parent wanted a lower level of maintenance to flow, it was always their right to enter the commission and get that from the calculation. I understand that some of the 15 cases that are presented to us are about information flows. We have amended the Bill to enable information provided in court to be shared and, I hope, have removed that impediment. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, asked about arrangements in Scotland and issues that are seemingly still unresolved there. I am unsighted on that. Rather than try and scramble through my notes, I will talk to officials and perhaps we should discuss that further. It is not an issue, as far as I am aware, that seems to be raging and a major problem. If it is, these things often show themselves, particularly with legislation entering its final stages. The 12-month rule gives time for agreements to bed in and allows swift intervention by the commission to keep maintenance flowing to children, and therefore puts parents with court orders on the same footing as any other separated parents. On that basis—although I am sure he will not be entirely happy—I hope the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment