Examination of witnesses (Questions 60-65)
TUESDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 1999
PROFESSOR GWYNN
DAVIS and PROFESSOR
NICK WIKELEY
60. But still pretty brutal in its lack of—
(Professor Davis) In its lack of fine tuning, yes.
61. You are happy with that, are you?
(Professor Davis) Either that or you effectively abandon
the attempt to gather payments from—absent parents in these
cases.
Mr Leigh: That is very fair.
Chairman
62. You studied 123 cases in some depth in the
course of writing the book. There is an implicit assumption within
the proposals of the White Paper that it is not a question that
the money is not there in the families who are reluctant to pay,
it is just a question of getting the administrative fix that is
sufficiently fair, and then everything will be all right. Would
you be able to assess at all whether there is a "Can pay,
won't pay" attitude? Is there a crock of gold out there that
people are just not paying because they are being cussed, or did
you get the impression, of the cases that you studied, that there
really was financial distress and that it was difficult for the
families to respond to, even if all the other administrative machinery
was put right?
(Professor Davis) I think there is both. I think there
is evidence of real financial distress in some cases, and it is
a worry for us all that if this system does not work effectively,
particularly where there are serial relationships and serial responsibilities—taking
on new responsibilities for children and, at the same time, being
expected to pay for children of a former relationship—and
if the money is not coming into the new family as it should from
the father of step-children, one can imagine a number of situations,
and we observed them, where there is real hardship and real unfairness.
At the same time, there is also an element of walking away. That
walking away can be justified—and is justified because people,
on the whole, do not say "I am a moral idiot". They
justify it, and they justify it in terms of actions taken in the
relationship, they justify it in terms of their new responsibilities
and they justify it in terms of the existence of state support.
That is a consideration that they weigh, and that is one reason
why the premium, or disregard, is going to be, we think, very
important, or very interesting for social scientists to monitor,
but probably important.
63. Finally, you came to the conclusion, I think,
from memory, that the Inland Revenue would be a better machinery
anyway.
(Professor Davis) May be.
64. Would you like to say a word about that?
(Professor Wikeley) What we actually said in our conclusion
was that it was something that was worthy of consideration. Having
said that, the developments over the last two years suggest to
me that it is now more worthy of consideration. The fact that
the Inland Revenue has taken over the Contributions Agency and
it now, of course, is taking over Working Families Tax Credit,
or Family Credit as was, means, it seems to me, there is going
to be a fundamental change in the nature and the relationship
between the Revenue and its customers. Previously, of course,
the job of the Revenue was simply getting money out of people
and, frankly, it did not deal with people on low incomes. Those
were always two of the major objections to putting the CSA within
the Revenue. Now, of course, there are other reasons why you should
not put the CSA there, or might not wish to put the CSA there,
but given that Working Families Tax Credit will mean that the
Inland Revenue will be dealing with people who are non-taxpayers
and will be giving people money, it seems to me that it is right
to reconsider, not least given the Government's other projects
in terms of a Child Tax Allowance and so forth. If you want an
integrated child support system the CSA, within the DSS, may end
up looking as though it has been on a limb in five or ten years'
time.
65. Gentlemen, I am sure we could continue this
discussion all afternoon, but, again, constraints of time are
weighing heavily upon us. Can I thank you very much? The book
you have written and the submissions you have made have been very,
very useful to further our work in this inquiry, and I am grateful
to you for taking the time to come here to give oral evidence
in support of that. Thank you very much for coming.
(Professor Wikeley) Thank you.
Chairman: The public session is temporarily
suspended.
|
