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Mr. Steve Webb (Northavon): Amendment No. 76, tabled by my hon. Friends and me, relates to the position
of women who do not want to name the father, and to their concerns about violence. That is an important issue on which my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. George) hopes to speak if he catches your eye, Madam Speaker.
In my contribution, I shall respond to the amendments and new clauses tabled by Conservative Members. They raise some important issues.
The spirit of new clause 4 appears to touch that raw nerve about which we have all heard in our surgeries--the fathers who say, "I pay and I'm being chased, but I know someone else who doesn't pay a penny and he seems to be left alone." For the reasons that have been given--including the intervention of the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore)--the new clause is problematic. How will the prioritisation work? Would people who paid something be left alone, and would that cause problems? It is hard to see how that form of words would work.
I am genuinely uncertain about the targets and incentives that the CSA is set. Will the Minister assure the House that such incentives will encourage the CSA to chase non-payers--such as one requiring it to increase the percentage of people who are paying any amount--as much as they do to increase total maintenance collected? I hope that she can offer that reassurance. In the absence of such provision, the problem that the Conservatives have raised will continue. Many fathers who are doing their best to pay legitimately feel that others are getting away with doing nothing.
New clause 5 refers to deduction of earnings orders. I did not catch much reference to its aims in the speech of the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles). I am not entirely clear what it would achieve. I would be happy to take an intervention from the hon. Gentleman if he wants to elaborate on the matter.
Mr. Pickles:
The new clause simply tries to improve the way in which deduction of earnings orders are levied. It is no more complicated than that.
Mr. Webb:
I am grateful; I had assumed that, although how it would do so is still not clear to me.
My main concerns relate to amendment No. 89 and the long list of seemingly draconian measures to pursue non-payers. I notice the term "curfew" popping up and various other quite serious penalties for non-payment. I find myself asking in what respect is child support debt different from other debt. That is a fundamental question. Most of the specific penalties, such as the withdrawal of driving licences and the imposition of curfews, that we are introducing for child support debt would not apply to any other debt.
If I, as a tenant, owed a former landlord some money, I could be pursued through the courts by a deduction of earnings order and various other measures, but he could not apply to the court to put me under a curfew. Why would someone owing money in one sphere be subject to draconian attacks on liberties when someone owing money in another sphere would not be so? I am not sure that child support debt is different in substance, which is why I have reservations about the application of such penalties only to such debt.
It could be argued that the taxpayer has an interest. If so, there may be a case for restricting the imposition of such severe penalties to cases that result in the public purse losing out--although there is no indication of that in the amendment. I am not convinced that the case has been made for those very severe penalties to be applied peculiarly to child support debt. No argument has been made that it is so different from other debt. I am sure that we would not want to apply such sentences to other debt.
We very much sympathise with the spirit of new clause 4. Although its provisions would not work practically, we would like to hear from the Minister an assurance that the agency's targets recognise the genuine public concern about people who do not pay and give it an incentive to chase such people just as hard.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives will be able to address our concerns about women who fear violence.
Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West):
I shall address the point raised by the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb): in what way does the offence of owning child support debt differ from offences of owing other debt? I would say that the difference is this: child support debt is the most unnatural of crimes. We are talking of people who are not prepared to make provision for their own children. Therefore, I entirely understand the Government's desire to impose such strange punishments as the withdrawal of driving licences. I entirely understand the motive that lies behind the introduction of a new order of penalty to deal with a specific and unnatural crime.
My difficulty with the penalty is that it introduces a new principle into our criminal justice system. In this country, the penalties available to punish miscreants are generally understood. The principal ones are the deprivation of liberty, the deprivation of finance through fines and the deprivation of time through the imposition of community service orders. Withdrawing a driving licence is of a different order because the penalty would not effect everyone in the same way that the deprivation of liberty or the removal of finance or time does. Some people who owe child support debt do not possess a driving licence or own a car. Therefore, the ability to withdraw a driving licence would affect them differentially from other people. It would have no impact on them at all.
I prefer amendment No. 89 because it would provide a menu of penalties that would affect the miscreants in a way that is appropriate and consistent across the board. We had this discussion in Committee when we debated benefit withdrawal and the Government quite rightly responded to our suggestions that we should withdraw benefit by saying, "Ah, but what about those people who do not receive benefit? They would be affected
differentially. That would be unfair and unjust." I suggest that exactly the same argument applies to the desire to withdraw a driving licence. The menu of penalties in amendment No. 89 is far preferable.
Mr. Andrew George (St. Ives):
My hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) spoke to amendment No. 76 and, depending on the Minister's response, I wish to flag up our desire to hold open the possibility of pressing that amendment to a separate vote.
The benefit penalty applicable to parents with care who refuse to divulge information about a former partner has been set at 40 per cent. for a number of years and it can apply to someone for an indefinite period. As I understand it, the Government intend to continue that approach. The amendment would restore the position to what it was when the benefit penalty for non-disclosure was a 20 per cent. maximum reduction for the first six months and a 10 per cent. maximum reduction for the ensuing 12 months with no possibility of extension beyond the total 18-month period.
There are several arguments against the withdrawal of benefit at a 40 per cent. rate. I welcome the Government's general claims and their obvious commitment to prioritising the ending of domestic violence, but they seemed determined that women who seek to avoid domestic violence should be coerced into financial dependence on violent partners. Amendment No. 71 has to be read in conjunction with amendment No. 81, which we shall debate later. I appreciate that the Minister objects to my comments, but matters of deep concern are involved. Assurances given by Ministers need to be deepened to reassure the many organisations concerned about domestic violence that the CSA will be able to deal effectively, robustly and sensitively with these difficult issues.
Mr. Swayne:
We rehearsed those arguments in Committee, but I fear that the amendment in the hon. Gentleman's name would let off the hook the worst category of father: those who threaten physical violence. By providing that means of escape, we are accommodating the problem rather than trying to tackle it.
Mr. George:
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's comments. It is a question of getting the balance right. Many domestic violence cases lead to the murder of women, but there are also organisations that, rightly, campaign on a broad front to ensure that women do not make malicious and trumped-up allegations to avoid the father having contact, although I realise that that point is different from the one made by the hon. Gentleman.
How many more murders resulting from domestic violence need to take place before people appreciate the need to tighten up the legislation further? I hope that we will explore this argument a little more in the debate on amendment No. 81. Men may make violent threats in an attempt to get out of their responsibilities, but violent threats are followed through with tragic results, as we have seen far too often.
Amendment No. 76 is an anti-poverty amendment, and has to be read alongside amendment No. 81. There are four strong arguments against the Government's proposal for a benefit penalty. First, it will push children into poverty. The case is as simple and clear-cut as that.
A 40 per cent. reduction in benefit for a single parent pushes the family's income 40 per cent. below the income support level. How does the Minister view that in the light of the Government's honourable efforts in establishing the social exclusion unit and their key priority to reduce and remove childhood poverty? The proposal will clearly work against that.
The proposal will penalise the children whom the child support system is designed to support. If a low-income family loses income, everybody in the family suffers. The Government will be unable to prevent the parent with care from intentionally or unintentionally making the child bear the burden of that income loss. These are the people who can least afford to lose income. Two thirds of children in one-parent families in the UK are poor, compared with a quarter of children in two-parent families. Income support is set at a level that is supposed to be the absolute minimum for survival, but the Government propose to push families below that level.
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