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3.44 pm
Mr. Eric Pickles (Brentwood and Ongar): I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Madam Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: New clause 5--Deduction of earnings orders--
'.--There shall be substituted for section 31(3) of the Child Support Act 1991 the following--
"(3) A deduction of earnings order shall be made so as to secure the payment both of arrears of child support maintenance payable under the maintenance calculation and amounts of child support maintenance which will become due.".'.
Amendment No. 89, in clause 16, page 14, line 41, at end insert--
Government amendment No. 40.
Amendment No. 76, in clause 19, page 20, leave out lines 15 and 16 and insert--
Mr. Pickles:
I am sorry. I nearly got to my feet when the order of consideration motion was moved formally, Madam Speaker. Members nearly had the opportunity to hear my speech twice.
These matters relate to enforcement. We are here to help the Government to meet their straightforward promises. The other night, I had the pleasure of seeing the Minister of State in the Lobby. He asked whether I had been reading any interesting books with which I might entertain the House. Indeed I have. I had the opportunity to read a Labour party document that was first published in October 1996, entitled "Children First: Reforming Child Support". It is pretty thin on plot, but it is the progenitor of the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Bill. Given that I am also interested in the cinema, I could say that if that document was the novel, the Bill is the screenplay. As in most cases, there is a considerable difference between the novel and the screenplay. We want to go back to the Labour party's original proposals.
The document makes the following clear statement:
When the Bill becomes law, two systems will operate concurrently. Tonight, we shall be asked to approve a system that will force parents to make payments that we consider to be essentially unfair, as the old system will operate side by side with the new one. The true beneficiaries--not the intended ones--will therefore be those who have paid nothing. We want to ensure that those who have made and continue to make contributions are not made out to be mugs. Parents who have obeyed the law and sought to meet their obligations must not be placed at a disadvantage compared with those who have attempted to evade their responsibilities. New clause 4 seeks to wipe the smiles off the faces of parents who have not taken financial responsibility for their children.
I quote with approval the document "Children First: Reforming Child Support" which states:
The problem with the Bill is that it provides for no penalties other than a fine and/or imprisonment and loss of driving licence. Amendment No. 89 provides new penalties, thereby allowing flexibility. The amendment is essentially similar to an amendment that I tabled in Committee--I see the Minister nodding vigorously. That amendment briefly took her fancy--she thought that it might be a good idea--until she got back to the Department, where it was discussed. I received a nice note back saying that it was not the Government's policy to make such a provision. I shall come back to that matter in a few moments, because I think that the Government are making a mistake. Our proposal would provide flexibility.
The proposal to remove driving licences has been heavily criticised. In a letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Havant, Mr. Jonathan Simpson of the RAC makes four principal criticisms of the proposal. I shall summarise the points, as it would be tedious to read them out. He says that there has always been a case for disqualifying motorists as a penalty for motoring offences such as dangerous or bad driving. Such a penalty is directly related to the offence, and is therefore obviously justifiable and acceptable in the eyes of the public. However, as the RAC points out, failure to comply with a maintenance order is an entirely different matter. The RAC is concerned that the application of the penalty in maintenance cases will be the beginning of a slippery slope, and that the penalty will in future be applied to various non-driving offences. The RAC goes as far as to suggest that a motorist could face disqualification for dropping litter.
The RAC also believes that removing someone's driving licence could end that person's ability to earn a living. Not unreasonably, the RAC concludes that application of the penalty could reduce those people's
prospects of being able to make regular maintenance payments. If people cannot commute to work or perform their duties at work because they no longer have a driving licence, their ability to provide reasonable sums will be diminished.
The RAC makes another suggestion, for which I have no sympathy. It says that the provision may well cause an increase in the number of those who drive a motor car while disqualified. That may or may not be true. However, I do not think that such a possibility is a valid reason for suggesting that the provision should not be made.
We criticise the provision quite simply because it lacks flexibility. Additionally, it seems ridiculous to place on the same level the penalty of loss of driving licence and the penalty of fine and/or imprisonment. The Bill makes loss of licence an alternative to imprisonment, not an addition to it.
Our proposal extends the range of available penalties. We are praying in aid the Prime Minister's suggestion that electronic tagging should be extended to domestic violence and stalking offenders. Frankly, it is a natural extension to apply the measure to the Child Support Agency to get getting people into the habit of paying and acting responsibly.
'(1A) After section 39A of the 1991 Act there shall be inserted--
".--(1) In either of the circumstances mentioned in section 39A(1) the magistrates' court may of its own motion order such of the measures mentioned in (2) as it thinks fit.
(2) The measures mentioned in (1) are--
(a) an order that any welfare benefits that the liable person is in receipt of at the time of the application be reduced by such amount as the Court thinks fit;
(b) a warrant of execution in respect of any goods owned by the liable person;
(d) a community service order.
(3) When making an application under section 39A the Secretary of State shall provide to the magistrates' court a statement setting out which welfare benefits the liable person is in receipt of and the amounts thereof.".'.
'(i) a maximum of 20 per cent. of any relevant benefit received by the parent for the first six months;
(ii) a maximum of 10 per cent. of any relevant benefit received by the parent for a remaining twelve months;
and the maximum period, without possibility of extension, is eighteen months.'.
We will insist that the agency reaches demanding targets to protect taxpayers' interests.
We would all applaud that. It continues:
Our initial target will be to ensure that an additional 100,000 absent parents pay maintenance.
That is exactly what new clause 4 seeks to achieve and would be in the interests of the Child Support Agency.
We start with the basic principle that parents, not the taxpayer should have the main responsibility for supporting their children.
29 Mar 2000 : Column 349
Parents who bring children into the world must accept that they have a responsibility. They have an obligation to look after their child until adulthood and to support that child financially.
Amendment No. 89 deals with curfew orders and other matters. On Second Reading there was a certain amount of criticism from all parts of the House of the Government's proposals to take away people's driving licences if they committed an offence under the Bill. Not a single speech--not even from the most loyal Back Bencher--said that that was a good idea. There was an earlier suggestion that people's passports should be taken away also, but that idea has been dropped from the Bill, perhaps owing to the mess in the UK Passport Agency. The Minister of State, Home Office might have ended up taking away everyone's passport. I recall my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) once receiving a briefing about the Medellin cartel, a drugs cartel that operates in Colombia. Someone in one of the five accountancy firms used by the cartel was leaking information about the cartel. The cartel could not work out which accountant was leaking, so it decided to execute all five of the accountants involved in its affairs. Although I am sure that, whatever we may think of our accountants, we all agree that that was an overreaction, the point is that the Government seem to be diminishing the value of removing passports as a penalty by failing to issue them initially.
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