Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Baroness Sherlock (Labour). It was answered on Wednesday, 27 April 2016.

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Children: Parental Separation

Question

My Lords, “so far” is a telling phrase. The Minister talked about the CSA but the Government are in the process of shutting down all CSA cases and telling parents that if they want to apply to the new scheme they have got to hand over one-fifth of all the money to the DWP in fees. However, they are allowed to apply to the new scheme only if they first ring a phone line and let someone on the other end of the phone try to talk them out of it and

tell them to go away and make a deal with their ex directly. Mrs Thatcher set up the CSA to make sure that parents pay for their kids even if they are separated from the other parent. If there are any grounds to the growing concern that parents will end up paying less money to children than they have in the past, will the Minister accept that the strategy has failed and needs to be reviewed?

Answer

The noble Baroness clearly has significant expertise in this area, but I have to say that the current system, which was set up in 2012, does not automatically take 20% of the payments. As I say, the point of the new system is to encourage parents to make their own arrangements. It is only if they do not use the direct payment method that they will pay the additional premium for that service.

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Secondary information

Type

Oral question

Reference

771 c1121 

Session

2015-16

Oral question type

Supplementary

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber

Subjects

Children Parents Separation

Link

View this Oral question on hansard.parliament.uk