Mr.
Plaskitt: We are trying to anticipate the very wide set of
circumstances in which couples separate. The whole thrust of the
legislation is to encourage couples to come to their own agreements and
arrangements. The decisions are for them to make about what is
appropriate. The whole thrust of this reform is to not draw people
unnecessarily into a system in which they do not need to be. However,
there needs to be a system in place to provide an arrangement for those
who cannot come to an agreement. It is not for me, or anybody else, to
say what a couple should do. There are plenty of sources of advice to
which they can turn in coming to a decision about how to make their
clean break. We are in the business of supporting couples who are
trying to make that arrangement, giving them an advice and support
service to help them decide how it is done, and, as a failsafe, having
a statutory scheme to which they can turn if they cannot reach
agreement.
Mr.
Boswell: I think that we have rattled this quite firmly,
but will the Minister at least take away the thought that there could
be a couple—not necessarily the typical couple—in which
one of the parties might be quite disingenuous or cynical and enter
into an agreement on a voluntary basis in the sure and certain
knowledge that 12 months later, irrespective of how sensible the
arrangement, it can be pushed into the statutory CMEC formula? I cannot
give the Minister the precise wording and can understand how complex it
would be, but will he consider a change so that irrespective of child
maintenance, which I appreciate is its proper concern, CMEC could take
into account some of the circumstances which had led up to its
involvement and the reasonableness of the parties? I think that it
would be very difficult to do that, but the people who have raised this
issue have a serious point. We all want voluntary agreements if
possible.
Mr.
Plaskitt: I understand that point entirely and appreciate
the way in which the hon. Gentleman makes it. I will consider it, but
we have given great thought to this issue and have thought very hard
about what Sir David Henshaw recommended. We have not agreed with his
recommendation for very good reason. I am happy to look at the matter
again, but underline that great consideration has been given to this
important subject. We believe that a 12-month period strikes the
balance between giving court orders a chance to bed in and work, and
providing the means to resolve difficulties quickly and keep payments
flowing. 11.30
am When problems
arise in the first 12 months, the parties can return to the court and
reinforce the order. Where arrangements break down or circumstances
change, the 12-month period allows swift intervention by the commission
to keep maintenance flowing to children, which therefore puts parents
with consent orders or minutes of agreement on the same footing as any
other separated parent. I appreciate that there is great interest in
the issue. I certainly accept its importance, but I hope that, having
given those reassurances and responses to interventions, the hon.
Member for Angus will withdraw his
amendment.
Andrew
Selous: I have listened with great interest to the debate.
The hon. Member for Angus has made a sensible point. By tabling the
amendment, he has tried to help the Government to achieve the central
thrust of the Bill, which is to get more effective voluntary
arrangements in place. I think that he is actually on the
Minister’s
side. I will not recap
the other points, other than to add that it is worth thinking for a
moment, on a human scale, of the effect of what the Minister is
proposing. The measure would involve removing children from the family
home, which they love and know, and from the place where they have
friends and attend school, because fewer non-resident parents will say,
“You keep the house and that is part of my settlement,”
which, as the Minister has said, can be undermined.
I will not reiterate the other
points, because they were made clearly. I agree with the points made by
my hon. Friends the Members for Forest of Dean, for Weston-super-Mare,
and for Daventry. If the hon. Member for Angus chooses to press the
amendment to a vote, we will support him.
Mr.
Weir: I have heard what the Minister has said, but this is
an important point. I accept the defects in amendment No. 90, but I
want to press amendment No. 125 to a vote.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw
the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment proposed: No.
125, in clause 15, page 7, line 18, at end
add— ‘(2) In section 4 of
the Child Support Act 1991 (Child support and maintenance), for
subsection (10)
substitute— “No
application may be made at any time under this section with respect to
a qualifying child or any qualifying children if there is in force a
maintenance order in respect of that child or those children and the
person who is, at that time, the non-resident
parent.”.’.—[Mr.
Weir.]
Question put, That the
amendment be made:—
The
Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes
9.
Division
No.
10] Question
accordingly negatived.
Question proposed, That
the clause stand part of the
Bill.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss new
clause 1— Application to Commission by third
party— ‘Where a
child’s welfare is at risk because appropriate maintenance
arrangements have not been established, a third party specified by the
Secretary of State can, on behalf of the child, make an application to
the
Commission.’.
Andrew
Selous: New clause 1 gives a power to institute
maintenance arrangements, where they have not been put in place by a
parent with care. It would apply only in extreme circumstances in which
the parent with care is considered not to be acting in the best
interests of the child. The power would be exercised as an extreme
fall-back position in, hopefully, very few but none the less important
cases, if the welfare and financial well-being of the children
concerned is not being taken into account and promoted by the parent
with care. We are considering a case where a parent with care has
recklessly failed to pursue maintenance and is not acting in the best
interests of the children
concerned. Social
services or the courts might wish to exercise the power in question. In
some circumstances, parents with care are deemed by social services to
be fit and proper parents and can continue to care for their children,
but, perhaps due to addiction problems or a lack of willingness to
engage with the financial process, they might not see fit to approach
CMEC or to establish a voluntary arrangement to get the maintenance
flowing to them and their children. We do not imagine that such a thing
would happen in a wide range of circumstances, but, following our
debate on clause 15, many parents with care will come out of the child
maintenance system, because they cannot be forced into it due to being
in receipt of benefit. Do we imagine that all such parents with care
will want voluntarily to establish maintenance agreements? Hopefully, a
large number of them will do so, which is the Minister’s wish
and the wish of all Committee members. However, there will be hard
cases where parents do not act in the best interests of children, and
new clause 1 would allow others to put maintenance arrangements in
place.
It goes without
saying—although Committee members will, perhaps, raise the
issue—that domestic violence and fear are real for all our
constituents, as are instances of people being pursued. I want
safeguards to accompany the exercise of this power, so that it is used
only if the safety of the parent with care is absolutely guaranteed.
The parent concerned may be in a women’s refuge at an address
unknown to the non-resident parent, where their safety is
guaranteed.
Paul
Rowen: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the Committee who he
envisages being able to make such an application? Which groups of
professionals does he mean? He was eliciting some examples of at-risk
situations, but how would he define “at-risk”, thereby
enabling people to make an
application?
Andrew
Selous: The hon. Gentleman has asked two questions, the
first of which is who might make such applications on someone’s
behalf? I am referring to professional people in contact with a family
and the parent with care who are charged with having an overview of
that family’s welfare. We are talking about people working in
social services, court staff, Jobcentre Plus staff—if they were
aware of the circumstances—and accredited welfare rights
officers, perhaps at the citizens advice
bureau. For some
people, the whole world of finance is an unknown. Given the lamentable
state of financial education, our deliberations, and even knowledge of
the new Bill, will pass far over the heads of large numbers of our
fellow citizens throughout the country, who will never hear about this.
Under section 6, people were dragooned into the system, and we have
been through the arguments why that is not appropriate. The new clause
reserves an important residual power, which would be exercised with
discretion, caution and absolute concern for the safety of the parent
with care. The hon.
Gentleman had a second part to his question. Will he remind me what it
was?
Paul
Rowen: It concerned the hon. Gentleman’s definition
of “at
risk”.
Andrew
Selous: Any children who are in poverty or on benefits and
who could be lifted out of poverty by the receipt of regular child
maintenance are, by definition, children who would be “at
risk”. The clause would not be used in cases where wealthy
couples have separated. We are talking about people in dire financial
circumstances.
Mr.
Plaskitt: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for tabling
his new clause. I have listened carefully to his defence of it, but I
think that he will understand why I am going to encourage him to
withdraw it. The more one considers the measure, the more one begins to
see the real problems in going down that road. There are several
problems that make the measure effectively
unworkable. I take the
point that the hon. Gentleman is talking about people in extreme
circumstances, but the problems arise when such circumstances are
looked into. For example, who are the third parties are going to be?
That is a real concern. In his speech, he made a
few suggestions about who the third parties would be—I was
keeping a list. He mentioned social services staff, perhaps the courts,
perhaps Jobcentre Plus staff, welfare officers or people who work for
the citizens advice bureau. There are real problems with the idea that
we could somehow designate these people and put them in a position of
taking the serious step of referring the welfare of another child, with
whom they have no relationship, to the commission. They would need to
instruct or request the commission to begin the process of determining
an agreement for that child, which would be fraught with difficulties.
Who will the Secretary of State accredit with the ability to do that? I
cannot see any means of coming up with a definitive list of who could
be accredited in those circumstances, which is the major difficulty
with the hon. Gentleman’s
proposition. Andrew
Selous: I am a little surprised by the Minister’s
comment that those people would have no relationship with the child. I
am not particularly suggesting that this category of professional might
be one who would instigate this. For example, an educational welfare
officer might be intimately involved with a family and visit them at
home because the child is not turning up at school. They might find
that the reason why the child is not turning up is a matter of finance,
due to deep poverty within the home. There are many professionals of
the state—employees of central and local government—whose
job it is to have an intimate relationship with that family and keep
the welfare of the children at
heart.
Mr.
Plaskitt: I return to the question of where we draw a line
to determine who can or cannot act in that way. With respect, the hon.
Gentleman cannot say where that line would be drawn. If we were to
pursue his new clause, the line would have to be drawn somewhere, and
it would be impossibly difficult to determine who is authorised to make
such
interventions. 11.45
am A more
profitable route would be to consider the information and advice
service. I hope that people dealing with families in the circumstances
that the hon. Gentleman has discussed, and who are perhaps aware of the
risk to a child who is not receiving the maintenance to which it is
entitled, would refer to that service. That is the route that one
should take in order to resolve the issue, rather than one in which a
third party—especially as there is an issue about who that
should be—initiates a process when they do not have a biological
relationship with the child. It is better to refer to an information
service to encourage either of the parents to initiate the process in
support of the child. I am with the hon. Gentleman on his objectives,
but I think that the question is one of
means.
Mr.
Boswell: We are having the right kind of discussion about
this difficult issue. I want to probe the Minister about something he
has just said. It is clearly sensible for the information and advice
service to advise the parties to do that and to give them all the
encouragement they need in what might be a daunting
process—issues such as domestic violence may colour
things. I am not quite clear whether any party has the power to refer
the circumstance of the case to the information and advice service over
the heads of the individuals involved. There are data protection and
confidentiality issues that should perhaps be
considered.
Mr.
Plaskitt: I do not think that that requires a power. The
people working in support services will become aware of the service
that we are setting up. They will know of it and will be able to refer
to it, just like anyone else. Having done so, they will be able to
recommend what action an individual can
take. There are other
problems with the new clause. For example, who will make the judgment
that the circumstances pertaining to the child are not appropriate?
That is very much a judgment call. One individual, as a third party,
might look at the circumstances and say, “They are not good
enough for the child.” However, another third party might not
agree with that
view. Then there is
the question of how the commission will respond to such referrals and
how it will check their validity. I hope that hon. Members agree that
as we go further into what the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire
has suggested, there are genuine practicality and workability issues.
Although I take on board the motive that has driven him to table the
new clause, those issues are fatal flaws in the practical step that he
has suggested. I therefore hope that he will not press the new
clause.
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