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Mr. Andrew Dismore (Hendon): Amendment No. 89 states that the court has the power to reduce the amount of benefit that someone may have to pay. The hon. Gentleman's intention is to get people to pay more, but his proposal effectively encourages people who want to put off paying, as they will always think that the magistrates court will bail them out in the end--particularly bearing in mind the fact that there is no provision in the amendment to allow the parent with care to make representations to the magistrates court. Is not the amendment effectively creating an appeal to the court through the back door?
Mr. Pickles: No, it is not. It is an attempt to make some sense of the Bill, and to offer the courts the opportunity of a wider range for breaches of sanction, other than imprisonment or a fine. After all, these matters would apply only where there was an application for default. This is not something that will arise in the normal course of events in which the parent with care and the non-resident parent discuss the financial future of their children. It will come into play where someone is in default. The amendment is not a way in which the
non-resident parent can apply through the back door. It gives the courts a greater degree of flexibility, and seeks to strike a balance and to ensure that someone gets into the habit of regular payment, gets back to a degree of social responsibility and recognises that the Child Support Agency is not a soft touch.
Under the legislation as drafted, people have a choice between losing their driving licences or going to jail. I suspect that most people will opt to lose their licences. After all, people who are not in the regular habit of using a motor vehicle might consider that to be a way of getting off scot free. We are seeking to achieve a balance.
Mr. Frank Field (Birkenhead):
The whole House wants the reform to work, so I am anxious to know what the hon. Gentleman is proposing. Does he mean to establish a menu of penalties that the CSA could use, or is he proposing that the CSA must take certain actions in certain circumstances?
Mr. Pickles:
The right hon. Gentleman's first suggestion is what we want to achieve. We want to extend the menu of actions available to the CSA. At present, there are only the extremes of losing a driving licence or going to prison, with the option of a fine somewhere in the middle. We want a graduated scale. Clearly, curfew orders will not work unless there is a reasonable anticipation that the people involved will abide by them. However, the Government are researching ways to extend such orders beyond their original application, which was as a way to help offenders released on licence to prepare to return to society.
It is extremely sensible to take into consideration domestic violence and stalking.
Mr. Simon Burns (West Chelmsford):
I have been listening to my hon. Friend extremely carefully. The new clauses rightly make suggestions about how to strengthen the encouragement given to people to pay child maintenance. However, I am slightly worried that there is another side to that coin, involving a parent who pays the maintenance but who does not have access to the children of the relationship. Does my hon. Friend think that the Bill should tackle that equally important issue?
Mr. Pickles:
A later group of amendments deals with the relationship between the non-resident parent and the parent with care. However, my hon. Friend is right to express concern that the Bill might well cause children to find themselves caught between parents feuding over financial matters. The Bill draws questions of access and finance close together, and means that it could be in one party's financial interest to keep a child over on a Sunday evening and to take it back to school on the Monday,
Mr. Field:
Am I right in thinking that the Opposition are proposing to add to the range of measures that CSA officials would have at their disposal to enforce the legislation when it is enacted?
Mr. Pickles:
The right hon. Gentleman is nearly right. Under the terms of amendment No. 87, CSA officials would have to apply to the court for enforcement of the proposed options. Excellent though the CSA is, anything else would be a step too far.
I commend the new clause and the amendment to the House.
Mr. Burns:
I rise to support new clause 4. I should like to describe the criticism that I have heard most often in constituency surgeries over the past eight years or so, whatever the views on the Child Support Act 1991 and on the Government's reforms before us today. The parent who pays child maintenance and complies with the Child Support Agency's assessment feels that he is a soft target because he does not seek to hide his financial responsibilities, whereas, in the early days, an organised, hard-core group sought to bring the child maintenance system to a grinding halt through their obstruction of the operations of the original CSA and to avoid paying any child maintenance whatever.
New clause 4, which would strengthen the powers of the CSA, is eminently sensible. It would take away the sense of unfairness and special targeting felt by a group who do not want to cause trouble and want to make a financial contribution to their children's upbringing.
Mr. Dismore:
I am listening with interest to the hon. Gentleman. May I put a hypothetical question to him? What is the position of a person who pays £1 or £2 a week but is liable to pay considerably more and could therefore accrue substantial debts, as compared with a person who has to pay only a small amount in the first place and does not pay any? Which case does the hon. Gentleman think should be pursued first? The new clause suggests that the person to be pursued is the one paying nothing who has only a small amount to pay, whereas someone with a huge amount to pay could effectively avoid being caught by this proposal by paying a token amount.
Mr. Burns:
The hon. Gentleman has raised a third issue. I was coming on to the issue of parents who pay. The person who pays nothing should be pursued because he is seeking to avoid all his financial responsibilities. Similarly, if an individual is playing the system at a minimal level to try to avoid his full financial responsibilities, he must also be pursued by the CSA.
The trouble with any legislation that contains an either/or option is that some people will seek to use the existing law to maximise their abuse of it, and we have here an example.
Mr. Burns:
If my hon. Friend wishes to tell us of another one, I shall give way to him with pleasure.
Mr. Pickles:
I was merely going to suggest that that is one of the advantages of such a matter going before the
Mr. Burns:
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have all had examples over the past eight or nine years of people who have played the system, or sought to play the system, to avoid their financial responsibilities.
There is one point on which I am confused, although I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) is not. I should like clarification. To give priority to those individuals who make no financial contribution above those who are making a full and proper contribution must not also mean that the administrative systems of the CSA fall behind, thus inadvertently causing problems for those who want to pay the full amount, but are still awaiting assessment for payment, or waiting to have an assessment confirmed.
Mr. Field:
Does not the new clause have one real disadvantage? Let us take our mind into the next Parliament, where I expect that the hon. Gentleman will still be sitting on the Opposition Benches and Labour will be on the Government Benches. The Opposition will be looking for the amount collected under the new Act. If we pass the new clause, one of the covers available to the Government would be that maintenance payments--or the rate of collection--had gone down because the Government were following the instructions given to them by the Opposition in the previous Parliament: that we should chase those from whom it is most difficult to obtain money and de-prioritise those from whom we can most easily get maintenance payments. Does the hon. Gentleman realise that?
Mr. Burns:
I understand what the right hon. Gentleman says. However, in practice that need not be true, although there is certainly a danger that it may be. If the CSA is properly staffed and managed, the problem would not necessarily arise. It remains to be seen whether the reforms will work, but the Government maintain that the system will be so much simpler and so much more transparent than the old one that the previous problems in administering it will not occur. They argue that those who have to pay child maintenance will understand what they are being asked to pay and that the complicated formula that we set up--believing that it would be fairer on parents--will be cut away. The system should be easier.
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