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Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to all those who have supported me, as well as to those who have spoken but who have not supported me, of whom the number was fairly small. I pay as strong a tribute as I can to my noble friend Lord De Mauley, who, as I said, has been with me at all the meetings in recent times. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and I had a meeting with the Minister in the Commons, Maria Miller, way back in July. I intimated then, to the highest level of the Government, that I intended to table this amendment, so there is no question of an ambush or anything of that sort. I re-emphasise that the question that we are debating is whether the non-resident parent will pay maintenance—that is the only question—and the simple way to find out is to ask him. I do not for a moment want to adjudicate on who is to blame for non-payment—that would be idiotic. Apart from anything else, it would be very difficult, just as it will be difficult to police agreements in domestic violence cases unless the Government kindly accept my amendment as a way of doing it. The amendment proposes a very simple, straightforward way of doing it, because, under it, a factor would be whether it was ““appropriate”” to make a maintenance agreement. I thank all noble Lords who have supported me, particularly those who have put their names to my amendment. I thank also my noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree, who made it clear in our discussions with the Secretary of State that many of his views were based on constituency representation, of which I have none. Fortunately, three of my ardent supporters have a great deal of such experience. I regret that I have no real option but to press the amendment. If one is a supporter of a coalition, as I am thoroughly of this one, one has a duty if there is a slight deviation from the norm to do one’s best to bring the situation back on to the correct pathway. It is in that spirit that I invite the House to give its opinion on the amendment. Division on Amendment 62C Contents 270; Not-Contents 128. Amendment 62C agreed. Clause 134: Supporting maintenance agreements Amendment 62CZA Moved by