Andrew
Selous: I have one brief question relating to the
amendment and paragraph 4 of schedule 4, dealing with the minimum
payment, which the Bill seems to be increasing from £5 to
£7. Among the people excluded from having to pay that £7
are able-bodied students, many of whom have jobs to support themselves,
which is not unreasonable. We expect many students going through
universities and colleges to work to some degree. However, all of us
are fully committed to the battle to change the culture, so that change
can really happen. I wonder whether the provision sends the wrong
signal to the student population at large. Someone who is the father of
a child while at college or university and is able-bodied and able to
help out in the union bar in the evenings or to stack shelves in
addition to completing his studies might, as a minimum, be required to
pay the £7 referred to in schedule 4, which is the subject of
amendment No.
62. 5.15
pm
Mr.
Boswell: As I am now speaking substantively rather than
intervening, I should like briefly to welcome you to the Chair again,
Mr. Chope, in what has been a constructive discussion. I
rise, only tempted by my hon. Friend the Member for South-West
Bedfordshire because of my former involvement as Minister responsible
for students, to express an interest in his
point. First, on a
general point, part of this provision is to give at least a continuing
relationship to ensure that people are not disappearing from the map
and that there is an obligation to pay some maintenance. That is an
important point with analogies to the student loan scheme, where people
may be required in certain cases to pay a minimum even if they do not
have to pay more than a
minimum. Secondly, my
hon. Friend’s point about students was well made, because it is
now common—although I will not say universal—for students
to work for 15 hours a week. Bodies like Universities UK normally
advise students that working up to that level is acceptable, but if a
full-time student works above 20 hours it is not acceptable. I suspect
that this provision’s exemption for students may reflect the
fact that, historically, we have always said that student support was
discrete and separate from the benefits system. This is, in a sense, a
piece of private law adjusting the relationship between two persons
with the Department acting, perhaps, as
the intermediary. It is at least worth the Minister’s
reconsidering this provision, without pressing him to a final
conclusion on the
matter. Mr.
Plaskitt: I thank the hon. Members for Inverness, Nairn,
Badenoch and Strathspey and for Rochdale for tabling the amendment. I
welcome back the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and
Strathspey; it is nice to see him
here. Let me first
restate our firm belief that it is important that parents support their
children even when they have a comparatively low income. I shall come
back to that point. A flat rate that is applicable to non-resident
parents in receipt of benefits or with a very low income is the best
way to ensure that these important responsibilities are met, while
keeping payments at a level that low-income, non-resident parents can
afford. The hon.
Gentleman asked me specifically to comment on why the figure of
£7 is in the schedule. It is important to remember that the
£5 figure was introduced by Parliament in 2000 and has not been
increased since then, so it has remained at a flat rate of £5
for seven years. In looking into this matter, we have taken into
account increases in benefit rates since 2000 and have been bearing in
mind that the full application of the schedule does not come into
effect until 2010-11, at which time it will be introduced in a phased
transition that will not be complete until
2013. Taking into
account increases in benefit rates that have already taken place and
those that it is reasonable to assume will take place before the
measure has full effect, using the inflation forecasts and nothing
else, we come to the figure of £7. This is about retaining the
real value of the £5 that was introduced by Parliament in 2000
and maintaining a level amount as regards the proportion of income for
someone who is on benefit. Exactly the same percentage proportion moves
to that cash amount by the time that the measure is fully
applicable.
Danny
Alexander: I am grateful to the Minister for that
explanation, which seems very
rational.
Danny
Alexander: Occasionally. Given that the rating has been
allowed to fall behind inflation over the years, will the Minister
comment on the Government’s intentions from 2011 onwards, as
regards further updating the figure.
Mr.
Plaskitt: I was just coming to that. When the hon.
Gentleman was speaking to the amendment he suggested that there might
be an annual uprating. A 2 per cent. inflation adjustment is a small
cash adjustment, and it is not worth taking the detail of regulations
and all the recalculations of amounts through on an annual basis when
the cash change is so small. The Government envisage assessing the
rating in each Parliament and keeping it in line that way, which is a
sensible compromise between ensuring that it keeps pace with the real
value while at the same time not overly complicating the system and
introducing new annual calculations for timed changes in
payments.
Mr.
Boswell: I endorse what the Minister says and I encourage
him wherever possible on this sort of occasion to go for a flat rate
because it is much more intelligible. I can report to him that quite
apart from recent political events that might have made things even
more radical, I look forward to the receipt of the retirement pension
in about eight weeks’ time. We are about to have a deeply
ontological argument about the entitlement to 49 pence a week, and it
is one of those things where one is anxious that it should be got
right, but it is a waste of time not to have something that is
straightforward and intelligible to people wherever
possible.
Mr.
Plaskitt: I think that those were words of support and I
will take them as such, with appreciation as
always. Students who
are currently exempted or zero-rated for maintenance were mentioned.
There is an issue here, and I am interested in the view put by the hon.
Member for South-West Bedfordshire, because we are trying to address a
matter of responsibility. I am prepared to look again at that
matter—probably not within the context of the Bill, however, but
it does need to be examined. There is a whole variety of students in
very different circumstances. All I will say at this point is that the
issue merits further consideration. I do not want to go further than
that, but in view of the principle of responsibility that we are trying
to establish, it is something that I was already minded to examine.
With that in mind, I hope that the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn,
Badenoch and Strathspey will withdraw his
amendment.
Danny
Alexander: I am grateful to the Minister for his answers
and explanation. He did not address the point about assessments in
relation to poverty, but that may be something that we can pick up at a
later stage. With that in mind, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment, by leave,
withdrawn.
Andrew
Selous: I beg to move amendment No. 116, in
schedule 4, page 64, line 38, leave
out paragraphs 6, 7 and
8.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments: No. 117, in
schedule 4, page 65, line 15, at
end insert— ‘8A In
paragraph 7(4) (the amount of decrease for one child, where the
non-resident parent has care of the child overnight) omit the first two
lines of the
table.’. New
clause 10—Shared
care ‘The Secretary of State
must, prior to the establishment of the Commission, publish a report
which analyses whether the reduction in maintenance due to share care,
or any other factor, is leading to a reduction in shared
care.’. New
clause 18—Maintenance agreements in cases of care shared
equally ‘The Secretary of State
may by regulations determine maintenance agreements to be calculated in
instances where care is shared equally by both parents; and those
instances are to be determined by the
Commission.’.
Andrew
Selous: We move onto another important part of the Bill.
It is a thorny topic and one that it is important to get right for the
success of the Bill and for the general welfare of the children of
separated couples throughout the country—it is the issue of
shared care.
Amendment No. 116 is a probing
amendment. It would delete the three paragraphs in schedule 4 that deal
with shared care. It is worth briefly re-capping the current
provisions, in that the Child Support Act 1991 allows the non-resident
parent’s child maintenance liability to be
reduced: “If
the care of a qualifying child is
shared”. The Bill will
allow a reduction where the care is, or is to be, shared.
Under the new scheme introduced
by schedule 4, child maintenance will be fixed for a 12-month period,
and at the point when the liability is fixed, shared care arrangements,
which in this context are interpreted as the child staying overnight
with the other parent, may not have started. Unless the rules are
changed, that could lead to a situation in which the non-resident
parent’s liability takes no account of actual shared care
arrangements for the first 12 months, so I understand the need for the
particular paragraphs under discussion. The Bill therefore allows a
reduction in child maintenance liability in anticipation of future
shared care arrangements during the period of assessment, but that in
and of itself obviously raises a number of questions worthy of debate
and on which I would seek the Minister’s
response. Given that
the thrust of the Bill is to encourage as many parents as possible to
take the voluntary arrangement route, it means that the parents going
to CMEC will be those who have more contentious problems and who find
it more difficult to agree. It is therefore reasonable to assume that
those parents are more likely to be in touch on a range of issues,
including the all-important one of contact.
How will the commission
determine whether the care of the child is to be shared? How will the
extent to which the couple agree about shared care arrangements and the
robustness of that agreement be determined? What help, if any, will
parents get in reaching an agreement on shared care? What additional
support for separating parents do the Government, through the
Minister’s Department or the Department for Children, Schools
and Families, propose to help them to reach agreement on contact
arrangements and maintenance?
I want to take the Minister
back to Australia again. He will probably not thank me for that but it
is important to make him aware that the family relationship centres in
Australia have been “swamped”—it is their
word—by the demand from separating parents seeking help, support
and guidance. I urge him to ask his officials to make contact with the
Australian CSA on that point. The main objective of the family
relationship centres is to do more preventive work to help to prevent
couples in relationships and marriages from breaking apart in the first
place, and I heartily support that work.
It is also part of the remit of
family relationship centres to provide help for separating couples to
ensure that the arrangements for contact with children are as civilised
as possible and to help to provide support,
education, advice and assistance, perhaps even bringing in the
grandparents and so on. It is that part of the service that has
experienced massive demand. We need to learn from that and to ensure
that the arrangements in place in the UK are put into place in the
light of the Australian
experience. It is also
important to know what avenues will be open to either parent when the
contact agreement that formed the basis of the child maintenance
calculation has either broken down or been altered by agreement. Will
there be any grounds for a supersession when the parent with care and
the child are losing out financially because the non-resident parent is
not providing shared care on the basis represented to the commission?
The Minister is very keen to have 12-month financial agreements for
shared care. I understand the haunted look in his eyes about what has
gone on before; I also understand exactly where he is coming from, but
these are practical issues to which we need answers. If he does not
have all the answers now, I hope that he will agree to reflect on the
issues before Report. The Committee would take comfort from
that. Some specific
questions arise from amendment No. 116. In what situations will the
commission proceed to adduce child maintenance liability based on a
prescribed assumption of shared care, and for how long will that
prescribed assumption continue? That raises another point: whether
there will be a presumption of shared care which could be rebutted by
the other parent if they chose to do
so.
5.30
pm Amendment No.
117 is different in nature and I shall explain to the Committee what it
means if it is not immediately obvious. At the moment there is a
presumption that children can spend two nights a week apart from the
parent with care, with no reduction in maintenance liability. That is
102 days within any year, which is 52 weekends times two.
The present rule allows that
for each night a child stays with a non-resident parent—worked
out as an average over a 12-month period—child maintenance
liability is reduced by one seventh. In practice, that means that there
is a strong financial link between the amount of contact and the amount
of child maintenance paid. That leads to disputes over contact
arrangements, particularly when there is already conflict and mistrust
between the parents. Under amendment No. 117 there would be no
reduction in maintenance paid if the qualifying children were spending,
on average, up to three nights a week with the non-resident
parent. Obviously
these discussions cut both ways. There is the issue of the cost to the
non-resident parent: non-resident parents might be up in arms because
they would get less money. That is a valid argument and I accept it,
but it is outweighed by the strength of the reverse argument which says
that this would remove the financial friction between the non-resident
parent and the parent with care over getting extra nights of residence
for the child. We are effectively talking about another 52 days a year
which children could then spend with their non-resident parent. The
parent with care would not have to say, “No, I do not want that
as it will
reduce my liability,” and would be more likely to agree to a week
at Christmas, a week at Easter and two weeks in the summer. I shall be
interested to hear the Minister’s
response. Stephen
Hesford: How do the hon. Gentleman’s amendments
impact upon the idea of a voluntary
arrangement?
Andrew
Selous: Where there is a voluntary agreement it does not
come within the ambit of CMEC and parents are free to make their own
arrangements. I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making
because I made the point at the beginning of my remarks that we are
dealing with that subset of separating parents who have been unable to
reach a voluntary agreement and where there is likely to be more
conflict. I shall quote in a minute from a solicitor who specialises in
family law because she goes through some of these issues. The proposal
in amendment No. 117 would lead to a reduction in friction. It would
enable children to stay with the non-resident parent more frequently
because the parent with care, typically the mother, would not want to
have to trade handing over her children for a reduction in her
maintenance
payments.
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