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Mr. Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden): The right hon. Lady complained that there was no clear objective for the agency. Does she intend in her speech to spell out the clear objective that she will set it?
Ms Harman: We have been in office some five weeks. As I set out at the outset of my speech, my instinct is that the clear objective should be the responsibility of parents, but we need to discuss that again. The objectives were originally set out, but became confused under the previous Government. Today, we are trying to take stock of the problem and move forward.
Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover): I agree with a lot of what my right hon. Friend has said already, but for any law to be passed and to work properly, it must appear to be fair. I have racked my brains to try to find another solution. Over the five years that the agency has been in operation, I thought that, first, it might have got rid of the backlog, and, secondly, that more people would have been brought in to make payments. I get the impression that the biggest source of grievance for my constituents--I am sure that it applies across the country, whatever the constituency--is that the fathers who are paying think that they are paying to make up for the thousands whom the agency cannot find. That is why the law is in disrepute.
I do not suggest that there is an easy answer, but the Government should be looking at a new formula to start afresh, based on the ability to get everybody in the net, and not leave some people out. It is like another poll tax: some people getting away with it and others having to pay.
Ms Harman:
My hon. Friend makes a fair point. It is part of the deep sense of unfairness that people feel about how the agency has worked. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that the biggest source of grievance is not the one which I readily acknowledge--that some fathers pay while others do not--but that too many children do not have a good enough standard of living, because some fathers are determined to avoid payment while others are prepared to pay, but want to do so as and when they feel like it and at an amount that they choose. The unfairness engendered by the CSA has undermined the public support that it needs to be able to proceed with the task on which we all agree.
Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex):
The Secretary of State said that the CSA was never set targets. I refer her
Ms Harman:
I stand by what I said--this is not a party political issue. I do not seek to make party political points, but I want to present the House with the Government's analysis of what went wrong. The hon. Gentleman should try to assist in the process of sorting out the CSA. If he is saying that there were no problems, he is out of touch. Targets were set, but they were unrealistic and were abandoned for other targets. He should not defend what everybody now agrees is indefensible, and he should address his mind to moving forward.
The previous Government underestimated the scale and the difficult nature of the work to be done. Relationship breakdown often creates intense bitterness and resentment. Past evidence showed that many fathers simply did not want to face up to their responsibilities for their children. It was not an easy task. To make matters worse, the previous Government failed to see that rushing through the child support legislation without thoroughly examining the details of how the CSA would work in practice would lead to serious problems.
The CSA was set up in a difficult context, without clear objectives and much too quickly, and faced numerous practical difficulties in its early years. It had a completely new team--some from outside the civil service, and some from within the civil service, but from unrelated organisations such as the Property Services Agency. They came together to do an immensely difficult job against a background of unclear objectives. They had no experience of the issues involved and had a much harder task than the Government realised. That led to misunderstandings and mistakes. The CSA had a new computer system, with all the teething troubles and operational problems that that always brings.
As a result, the CSA failed. It failed children, few of whom saw any improvement in their financial circumstances--which was what the CSA was supposed to be about. It failed lone mothers and absent fathers--lone mothers were still on the breadline, and absent fathers were angered and confused by unacceptably poor service. As my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien) said earlier, they could not even get through on the telephone.
Mr. Archy Kirkwood (Roxburgh and Berwickshire):
The Secretary of State referred to improving children's standard of living in low-income households. Can I tempt her by referring to a very good device alighted upon by the Labour party last October, for making some savings? Under the heading "Maintenance Disregard", the document "Children First" says:
Secondly, another more practical matter in the Policy Studies Institute report to which I referred is that, if a father is paying maintenance--and therefore the children are dependent on maintenance rather than benefit--the mother can get a part-time job once the children reach school age, and right away she will be better off. She will be better off depending on maintenance while going out to work and improving her income, because she is not in the benefit trap.
Mr. Kirkwood:
The Secretary of State perhaps makes my point for me. Will she confirm that under the system of family credit, there already is a £15 disregard? Why should there not be a £10 disregard in the maintenance situation that I have just described?
Ms Harman:
The hon. Gentleman makes a valuable point, and we shall continue to look at it. We shall put it on our agenda, and I thank him for raising it.
The CSA failed children, lone mothers and absent fathers, but it also failed its staff. They, too, bore the brunt of the failure because of the mishandled introduction of the scheme. Hon. Members are only too well aware of the many problems caused by the ineffectiveness of the CSA. The parliamentary ombudsman has criticised its performance, as has the Social Security Committee.
I know that many colleagues want to discuss examples of the ineffectiveness of the CSA in some detail during today's debate, and I and my ministerial team look forward to hearing their points. I am sure that we all agree that the previous Government's failure to set up an effective system of child support left an explosive cocktail which hit everyone.
The statistics about the experiences of people caught up with the CSA are well known, but no less shocking for that, and we need to take stock of what happened. People telephoning the CSA have to ring about eight times before the telephone is even answered. That is not good enough, and I have asked the CSA to ensure that it has extra services on the telephone lines. Out-of-hours telephone services are also needed, so that people do not have to try to talk to the CSA from their place of work.
When people do get through, it can take many months--if not years--to get an assessment. I have asked the CSA to make sure that by the end of this year, it completes an extra 500,000 assessments and continues to
improve the accuracy rate. If people complain about the level of their assessment, their appeals can take as long again to be dealt with. In the first year, more than half of all assessments were wrong and had to be redone. Backlogs of work mounted up, so that by the end of the CSA's second year in existence, there were more than 400,000 cases. That is 400,000 absent fathers, lone mothers and children waiting for assessment, not knowing what is going on and unable to ring up to find out.
As some absent fathers suffered hardship as a result of that catalogue of problems, many others saw the opportunity to use the CSA's administrative failings as a justification for their determination not to pay. Indeed, further operational problems resulted from deliberate attempts at disruption. Some fathers without justification denied paternity to cause delay. What message is that sending to children? Some refused to answer letters. Some flooded the CSA with time-wasting inquiries, adding to the problems. Fathers refused to pay the maintenance for which they were liable, not because paying it would cause them genuine hardship, but because they were simply not willing to face their responsibilities as fathers. It is a paradox that maintenance payment rates are only about 50 per cent., while income tax payment rates are 90 per cent. Absent fathers are meeting their responsibilities to the community through the tax system, while refusing to face their responsibilities to their own children.
Last week, a colleague sent me a letter from a man complaining about the CSA. He was really complaining about the fact that his girlfriend had got pregnant and had the baby. In the letter, he asked, "Is there no law to protect me from that?" The answer is no--but there is a law to prevent him ignoring his responsibilities to that child. Some fathers think that everyone else is responsible for their babies arriving in this world. One absent parent wrote to the agency complaining about his treatment, explaining that it was not his fault that the baby was born. In this case, it was not even the fault of the baby's mother--it was her parents' fault. The father said that they encouraged him to stay overnight in their house three or four times. He complained:
As I have said, I think that the previous Government let down the staff of the CSA. I pay tribute to those staff. They work in an emotionally charged situation when family relationships have broken down and in an agency that must perform an important task, but which was beset with problems from the start. I understand the difficulties that dealing with an agency as ineffective as the CSA in its early years has caused for many of its customers. I understand the frustration and the despair that they feel. When dealing with people and such emotionally charged issues, there must be an acknowledgement of the need for an effective, efficient, polite and fair service. I make it clear that we expect all CSA staff to deal politely, fairly and promptly with their clients at all times.
However, we cannot and will not accept, condone or ignore threats and violence against CSA staff. Like all employees, CSA staff--who are carrying out the work of
a democratically elected Government--have the right to work without being threatened, abused or harassed. I was horrified to hear about the offensive and threatening material that has been sent to CSA staff through the post. However, I am pleased to acknowledge that, despite the difficulties facing staff, there are clear signs that the position is about to improve.
While the agency has yet to succeed in increasing the proportion of lone mothers receiving regular maintenance, there have been clear improvements since the early days. Where maintenance is paid, lone mothers receive more maintenance--that is an important point. The level of maintenance for a child whose mother is on income support has increased from an average of £15 to £30 a week.
The agency is speeding up responses--although its response time is still too slow. The average waiting time for an assessment has decreased from nine months to six months in the past year. I have asked the agency to ensure that, by the end of this year, the overwhelming number of cases are correctly assessed and out the door within six months of their receipt. That is still a long time for people to wait, but it could be a benchmark of further progress.
"A maintenance disregard, once introduced, will provide an incentive for co-operation which will mean consequent savings on income support."
20 Jun 1997 : Column 528
She will know that parents with care who are on income support have the benefits that they receive withdrawn pound for pound for any maintenance that they receive. That is such a good Labour scheme for saving money in the long run that I can see no reason why she is not announcing its introduction today.
Ms Harman:
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. As the collection rate of the CSA increases, we shall keep under review the option of a maintenance disregard. However, where I differ from him is in the belief that there is no point in a father paying if the mother is on income support. I do not believe that, for two reasons. First, there is a point of principle--not an airy-fairy principle, but one about children's understanding of the situation. I do not want any child to understand that their father has abandoned responsibility for them and has decided that they should rely on the state.
"Not once did any one of them mention anything about taking precautions so I presumed she was on the pill . . . because obviously if her parents didn't want a baby they wouldn't have encouraged me to stay".
That man was only 26. We will not accept that sort of behaviour, and we will pursue absent fathers who evade and avoid their responsibilities as parents.
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