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Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

I did not serve on the Committee, but I was interested in the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous). Obviously, when a divorce and separation take place the situation is extremely traumatic and emotional for all parties, but too often the need of the child is lost in the feuding between the two adults. I am especially concerned about the under-declaration of income by the self-employed. Divorced constituents have come to see me, women—usually—whose husbands were in well-paid jobs earning upwards of £50,000 a year, but whose annual income has suddenly and miraculously dropped to £10,000. Clearly their payments towards the upkeep of their child or children do not reflect either their earning potential or their actual earnings. I am horrified that people can simply walk away from their responsibilities to their children. I know of one case in which two sets of lawyers are going at each other hammer and tongs trying to ascertain an individual's genuine earnings. The Child Support Agency cannot take any further action to recover meaningful amounts of money for the child's mother because it cannot prove that this gentleman's earnings are in excess of £10,000, although only weeks before the divorce they were £50,000 per annum. I hope that, when income levels are in dispute, it will be possible for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs to produce tax records so that a realistic amount can be paid towards children's upkeep after a separation.