 House of Commons |
Session 2006 - 07 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill |
Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Chris
Shaw, Committee
Clerk
†
attended the Committee
Public Bill CommitteeThursday 11 October 2007(Afternoon)[David Taylor in the Chair]Child Maintenance and Other Payments BillClause 22Lump
sum deduction
orders
1.30
pm
Danny
Alexander (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
(LD): I beg to move amendment No. 79, in
clause 22, page 16, line 39, at
end insert—
‘32I Freezing
Orders
In circumstances
considered appropriate by the Commission, the Commission shall have the
power to make an application for a freezing order in accordance with
Civil Procedure Rules, part 25, and the Secretary of State may make
provision—
(a) about the
cases and circumstances in which the power under subsection (1) is
exercisable, including provision restricting the exercise of that power
by virtue of a change of
circumstance;
(b) about the
procedure in relation to the exercise of such power under subsection
(1); and
(c) for any person
affected to have a right of appeal to the High Court within seven days
of the making of the
order.’.
I
hope that the Minister will have some sympathy with the spirit with
which the amendment is moved, because clearly one of the major elements
of the Bill and the Committee’s deliberations is
enforcement—the need, recognised by hon. Members on both sides
of the Committee, to strengthen the Child Support Agency’s
ability to enforce its decisions. That ability relates to the
CSA’s powers, how it uses those administratively and the amount
of resources, effort and energy that goes into enforcement. The powers
under clause 22 on lump sum deduction orders are one such method by
which enforcement could be enhanced. The amendment simply suggests an
additional tool that would strengthen yet further the Child Maintenance
and Enforcement Commission’s ability to take lump sums when a
case history proves that that is necessary.
The powers to make freezing
orders apply under part 25 of the civil procedure rules, which
the amendment would put on the face of the Bill. It would apply in a
particular set of cases where, by enhancing the Bill’s
provisions, CMEC would be given the power to freeze assets in limited
circumstances if there is good reason to believe that a non-resident
parent is attempting or intending to remove assets from the
jurisdiction of the CSA.
The Under-Secretary of State
for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington, has
been dealing assiduously with a case that I have brought to his
attention on a number of occasions, and I am grateful to him for his
efforts.
While the amendment’s provision would not necessarily relate
directly to that case, it would certainly relate to a case where a
non-resident parent has disappeared overseas. Although there are powers
by which the Government are currently able to pursue such people, they
are complex, difficult to use and rely on having good overseas
relationships.
Admittedly, the number of cases
where one would know for certain that a non-resident parent intended to
leave the country as a way of getting out of their obligations and a
freezing order could be used, once all other processes had been
followed, may be a small. However, using a freezing order in those
cases would prevent any assets from being removed until such time as
the process of making a lump sum deduction order has gone through,
ensuring that maintenance was paid before any remaining assets were
taken out of the country. I hope that all members of the Committee
think that that would be an appropriate thing to try to do. Freezing
orders provide a way of doing that, and I hope that the amendment will
be
supported.
Mr.
Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con): I shall speak briefly
and in the spirit with which the amendment was moved. I think that it
would present a useful addition to the armoury of tools that CMEC would
have at its disposal. It may, in those circumstances, be covered by
other powers. I will welcome the Minister’s comments and am
certainly supportive of the general thrust of the comments from the
hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and
Strathspey.
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
(Mrs. Anne McGuire):
I thank the hon. Member
for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey for raising the issue
addressed by the amendment because it gives us an opportunity, albeit
briefly, to consider what additional powers will lead to a faster and
stronger enforcement process. As he clearly identified, the freezing
order granted by the court could be used to stop someone removing or
dealing with assets that they own, including bank accounts. I suspect
that many colleagues in the Committee will, at least at one point in
their career, have come across someone who attempted to move the
proceeds of a house sale out of the country before the Child Support
Agency, as currently configured, could get its hands on the money to
deal with maintenance arrears. As he said, where there is sufficient
evidence that the non-resident parent intends to dispose of assets in
order to avoid paying child maintenance, it may be useful to obtain a
freezing order to stop them doing so.
However, we have to recognise
that applying for a freezing order is a serious step and might
sometimes be referred to as the nuclear option. It is complicated and
expensive, and the decision is not to be taken lightly. The application
would obviously have to be supported by sufficient evidence to convince
a court that the order should be granted. For that reason, as the hon.
Gentleman also said, it can and should only be used in very specific
circumstances where there is factual evidence that the non-resident
parent intends to dissipate assets. We probably all have experience of
cases where that has
happened.
However,
there is some merit in the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion, and
although my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary thinks that I have been far
too soft
with the Committee on the last two or three clauses, I ask hon. Members
to give me and my ministerial colleagues the opportunity to look at the
proposal and consider what has been said. We must also take into
account that the civil procedure rules do not have an impact on
Scotland and consider how we would manage the situation for the whole
of Britain, not just for England.
Initial
discussions with the Ministry of Justice have been very positive.
However, we need to explore the amendment’s implications. We are
willing to consider the proposal and we undertake to consult colleagues
from the Ministry of Justice and others on whether the freezing orders
could and should be a viable option for the commission. In that spirit,
I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment, which we may return
to at a later stage.
Danny
Alexander:
I am very grateful to the Minister for her
answer. I would not say she was being soft; the purpose of these
Committees is to share ideas. She rightly pointed out, as I should have
done, that there is an issue relating to Scotland, and I look forward
to further deliberations on the matter. I beg to ask leave to withdraw
the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause
22 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause 23Administrative
liability
orders
‘The Commission
shall give 14 days notice of an intention to make an administrative
liability order and shall provide to the person who has failed to pay
an amount of child support maintenance an account breakdown showing how
the amount claimed has alleged to have become due and
thereafter.’.
In
practice, prior to an application being made for a liability order, the
non-resident parent is usually informed that a level of arrears exists.
However, when that information is provided, the non-resident parent is
often not provided with a breakdown detailing how the alleged arrears
have arisen. In that regard, the National Audit Office report of 2006
confirms that in 65 per cent. of cases where liability order
applications were issued the calculations made were defective to some
degree.
Liability
orders are dealt with by the magistrates court in England and must be
made if they
are
“satisfied that the
payments in question have become payable by the liable person and have
not been paid”.
To ensure
that payments are actually made, an account breakdown is often
requested by the magistrates. If it is not available at the time of the
court hearing, it is adjourned until that information has been
provided.
I see no
reason why the commission should not be placed under the same burden of
proof to provide evidence of the alleged debt, especially when it is
proposed that independent judicial scrutiny is to be removed and
liability orders will be made by an individual within the commission.
The amendment would ensure that as well as providing the person
involved with a total sum there will be a breakdown of how the sum has
been calculated.
Mr.
Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP): I have been listening carefully.
There seems to be a slight difficulty. Will not the commission be
providing the information to itself and then making the decision? The
difference in the current system is that there is independent advice on
the breakdown by the magistrates or sheriff court, but under this
system it would appear that the commission is judge, jury and
executioner all at the same
time.
Danny
Alexander:
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The
amendment seeks to ensure that the person from whom the arrears are
being sought is party to the breakdown. There is a wider point which
may well come up in further amendments or under clause stand part. The
point I am trying to make with this amendment is a narrower one: a
breakdown should be provided and should be available to the
parties to the case so that they can at least scrutinise and respond to
it. That is both for fairness and because sometimes the absence of a
breakdown is a cause in itself of further
delay.
Mr.
Tim Boswell (Daventry) (Con): Does the hon. Gentleman
agree that mere publication, or at least making available to an
individual a document explaining the breakdown, would provide some
basis of audit trail? If the document was on the record, there could be
no suggestion that the commission had made it all up itself and had
then buried the records after a period of
years.
Danny
Alexander:
I entirely agree. Given the sensitivity in
these cases and the fact that we are talking about potentially
significant sums and a range of other personal issues, having a degree
of transparency within the system is important for claimants. Having
the ability to seek independent appeals, the point made by the hon.
Member for Angus, is also important. It is not covered by this
amendment, but I hope that the issue will be addressed as our debate on
the clause proceeds. That is pretty critical to ensuring that in these
cases justice is
done.
Mr.
Harper:
One of the general points that we are very
supportive of is whether the appeals mechanism can question the
calculation. We decided not to table amendments on that; our amendments
come in a later group. The hon. Gentleman made a sensible point. If the
information is not available, non-resident parents could be in a
Kafkaesque situation. They could be told that an amount of maintenance
was liable, and the commission would be able to make the decisions
about liability and enforcement of the order, but they might not be
able to know how the calculation had been made, what they are being
asked to pay and for what reason. The extra transparency would be
valuable. It may be that the intention always was that it should be
part of the process, but nothing is lost in having it spelled out. We
are generally very supportive of the
amendment.
1.45
pm
Mrs.
McGuire:
I listened with interest to the contributions. I
hope that I can give some comfort which may meet hon. Members’
concerns. Given our
experience and that of our constituents with the CSA, we must all accept
that there is an understandable lack of confidence in some of the
processes. By the time the administrative liability order is issued,
the non-resident parent will be fully aware that they owe an amount of
child maintenance, and they will have had an opportunity to challenge
the maintenance calculation when it was made. In other words, we are
confident that the appeals ought to be in relation to the sanction
rather than the amount of the calculation because we will already have
gone through a process before we get to the point where a liability
order has been
made.
We do not
envisage that the commission would issue a liability order without
first seeking an explanation from the non-resident parent of their
failure to pay and to make arrangements for clearing any arrears. It is
certainly our intention that a liability order should be accompanied by
an explanation of how the amount on the order has been calculated. We
think that it should be for the commission to decide how that
explanation is
presented.
The point
of moving to an administrative liability order is to streamline and
speed up the enforcement process. Without going over old ground, that
is our ultimate intention in the legislation, albeit that we recognise
that it must be fair and transparent. We have already had that
discussion. With the greatest respect to the hon. Member for Inverness,
Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, if we had to accept the amendment, we
would be building in an additional 14-day delay, which would allow the
non-resident parent more time to dispose of any assets if he had a mind
to do so. Those are some of the issues that we discussed briefly in our
debate on the previous
clause.
When the
liability order is made, the non-resident parent will have a period of
time in which to pay or to lodge an appeal before it fully comes into
force. The time limit will be set out in regulations, but is likely to
be about one month. I hope that the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues
accept that by the point that the non-resident parent has a liability
order enforced on him—it is mainly a “him”—
he will have had ample opportunity to go through the calculations and
see that they are fair. We think that it is reasonable that the appeal
should be about the sanction and not about the
calculation.
Danny
Alexander:
I am grateful to the Minister for her response
and for recognising that it is important that the commission should
ensure, throughout the process leading up to using the powers in the
clause, that the non-resident parent should have had the opportunity to
become fully aware of the breakdown of the calculations and the way in
which they have been made. I am sure that the commission will take note
of our remarks when seeking to work out its own practices, and we may
well have the opportunity to debate that, perhaps in the form of
regulations.
Mrs.
McGuire:
An additional piece of information for the hon.
Gentleman is that we are seeking to introduce new procedures to beef up
the robustness of the process. Trained officials will check thoroughly
the case history and the amount of outstanding debt and
concentrate on the accuracy of any figures that are presented to the
non-resident parent. Their orders will then be signed off by a more
senior official within the commission. With that slightly more detailed
explanation, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will continue on his way to
withdraw the
amendment.
Danny
Alexander:
I am grateful for that additional assurance. I
express the hope that the process will take a good deal less than 14
days, otherwise the Minister’s objection to the amendment with
regard to time would be redundant. Given the assurance that she has
offered, I am happy to beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave, withdrawn.
Mrs.
McGuire:
I beg to move amendment No. 127, in
clause 23, page 17, line 16, leave
out ‘32K’ and insert
‘20’.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss
Government amendments Nos. 128, 129, 134 and 130 to
133.
Mrs.
McGuire:
The amendments are tidy enough and make no
substantial changes to their clauses. They remove the inconsistencies
in the way various appeal rights and regulation-making powers for
appeals against administrative liability orders are expressed in the
Bill. Without the amendments there may be some confusion about those
powers and, in particular, the division of responsibility between the
Ministry of Justice and the Department for Work and
Pensions.
Since the
drafting of the original child support legislation and the 2000
amendments, colleagues will know that responsibility for the Tribunals
Service and the legislation relating to tribunals that hear child
support appeals has passed to the Ministry of Justice. The route of
appeal for administrative liability orders will be to appeal tribunals
within the Tribunals Service. On reflection, it was considered that the
appeal provisions would be best placed under the existing provisions in
section 20 of the Child Support Act 1991 rather than within clause 23.
Section 20 is concerned with appeals to appeal tribunals and is thus
the logical place to put the
provisions.
The
amendments also make the consequential amendments necessary to clause
54. Those are necessary to ensure that the Bill and the 1991 Act are
entirely
consistent.
Amendment
agreed
to.
Amendments
made: No. 128, in clause 23, page 17, line 17, leave out
‘32K’ and insert
‘20’.
No.
129, in clause 23, page 17, leave out from beginning of line
37 to end of line 8 on page 18.—[Mrs.
McGuire.]
Mr.
Harper:
I beg to move amendment No. 106, in
clause 23, page 18, line 1, leave
out subsection
(3).
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments: No. 107, in
clause 23, page 18, line 4, leave
out ‘may’ and insert ‘shall’.
No. 111, in
clause 25, page 21, line 1, leave
out paragraph (c).
No.
112, in
clause 26, page 23, line 47, leave
out subsection
(4).
No. 113, in
clause 27, page 29, line 39, leave
out subsection 2D.
No.
114, in
clause 28, page 31, line 39, leave
out subsection
A5.
Mr.
Harper:
Amendments Nos. 106 and 107 are unnecessary, in
the light of the Government amendments that we have just
accepted.
Amendment
No. 111 comes back to one of the points that the Minister raised in our
discussions about the appeals process challenging the sanction and not
the calculation. We felt that that was reasonable on administrative
liability orders, but we wanted to test it on some of the more severe
sanctions, such as those addressed by amendment No. 111. However, we
felt that the sanctions on travel, which amendment No. 111 is about,
and the sanctions of curfew and prison were sufficiently serious that
allowing the commission to apply for those penalties without the court
being allowed to look at how the calculation was reached would not be
reasonable. On amendment No. 113, we felt that allowing a court to
imprison someone while not allowing it to examine how the position had
been reached is not sensible, given the seriousness of
imprisonment.
We
understand the Government’s concern that those in the
“won’t pay” category will use the appeals process
as a mechanism to string out the process. We tabled the probing
amendments to see whether the Government have given any thought to
situations in which somebody gets enmeshed in a process where the
calculation had not been well done. I listened to the Minister’s
earlier point about the robustness of the new processes, but we have
not reached this situation without any history, and I am nervous about
allowing somebody to be imprisoned and not allowing the court to have
the option of looking at how that position was arrived at. That was the
point of tabling a number of the
amendments.
Turning to
the other purpose behind the amendments, the proposal about prisons is
the most serious issue. As my hon. Friend the Member for South-West
Bedfordshire said earlier, we want to challenge the Government on
whether they can make the calculation improvement process happen
earlier than the sanctions. We have discussed whether it is appropriate
to allow the much tougher sanctions, which we support in principle, to
make sure that those who have responsibilities to their children fulfil
them, or whether it is appropriate to introduce enforcement powers now,
given that the new calculation processes that use the new data will not
be available until later. We want to know whether the two processes can
be introduced at the same time. We are probing the Government on
whether the tougher sanctions should be available when the calculation
processes are more robust and whether the courts should have the
ability to examine the whole process and not just challenge the serious
sanctions in respect of
imprisonment.
Mrs.
McGuire:
I recognise that the hon. Gentleman is saying
that amendments Nos. 106 and 107 are no longer appropriate as a result
of the previous Government amendments.
I turn to the
other amendments that were marshalled initially in the group. Amendment
No. 111 would give the court the power to question the maintenance
calculation when considering an appeal by the non-resident parent
against an order disqualifying him from holding or obtaining a travel
authorisation. As I explained earlier, the non-resident parent has the
right to appeal separately and earlier in the process against the level
of the maintenance calculation that they must
pay.
I wish to deal
specifically with the comment about those who cannot pay, which would
be part of the earlier process. Given our experience, I fully recognise
that there might be a lack of confidence in some of the ways in which
calculations were made in the past, but I have highlighted the fact
that we accept that it is vitally important to have in place a robust
process for the calculation of maintenance. When the new administrative
liability order is imposed, the non-resident parent will have time to
appeal to the court before it is
implemented.
We do not
believe that it is right to allow the non-resident parent to attempt to
undermine the travel authorisation provisions by seeking to reopen
issues. The difficulty with the hon. Gentleman’s proposal is
that it concerns a process—the calculation—that has been
dealt with through its own route of operation that allows non-resident
parents to have discussions with the commission. Having reached the
point at which the calculation is considered to be accurate, we would
then be allowing the whole issue to be opened up at a latter time in
the process, such as when the travel authorisation provisions are being
dealt
with.
Mr.
Harper:
I wish to clarify one point. In the process
described by the Under-Secretary, all the previous discussions and
appeals would have been with the commission. I referred earlier to some
sanctions treating cases differently. Someone could be in prison when
no independent person, other than within the commission, has been able
to examine the process. I am nervous about
that.
2
pm
Mrs.
McGuire:
There are two options when dealing with the
commission’s decisions, one of which is the independent case
examiner route, while the other is judicial review. Although most of
the processes can be dealt with from within the commission, the hon.
Gentleman was fair to highlight the fact that there may be exceptional
circumstances when someone is still not happy with the calculation. An
alternative route exists to assess objectively whether or not the
commission has made the right decision on the calculation. However,
that is entirely different from allowing someone to seek to reopen the
whole issue when the travel authorisation provisions are dealt
with.
We also have to
recognise our experience on such issues. There are those who, for
whatever reason, would want to ensure that they delay and delay and
delay as much as possible the imposition of a maintenance levy. We have
sought to balance the fairness and transparency that we all want in the
system to ensure that the non-resident parent is treated with justice
and that children and parents with care get support.
May I pick up on a couple of
points that the hon. Gentleman made on the new sanctions regulations?
We anticipate introducing the regulations as soon as they are approved,
assuming that the IT support is there and that staff training has been
completed. Given the history, we want to ensure that we have introduced
the proper systems and staff training. We anticipate that that is
likely to be in about 2009.
May I also clarify that the
maintenance calculation will be subject to a tribunal, as will the
liability order before that later stage? As I mentioned earlier, we
must separate the calculation and sanction
issues.
Amendments
Nos. 112, 113 and 114 would enable the court, when hearing an
application from the commission seeking a curfew, committal or
disqualification from driving order to question the liability order and
underlying maintenance calculation. Our view on that is the same as our
view on the other amendments in the group. Suitable appeal mechanisms
exist elsewhere in relation to the liability order and the maintenance
calculation. Curfew, committal and disqualification from driving are
intended to be measures of last resort, and we will not move to such
sanctions from a standing start. A whole process will be in place to
ensure that non-resident parents have ample opportunity to accept their
responsibilities. Therefore, these are the measures of last resort.
They should be imposed when a non-resident has wilfully refused or
culpably neglected to pay their child maintenance. The hearing should
be about establishing whether or not that is the case, and it should
not be undermined by focusing on other
issues.
I fear that
the amendments have the potential to aid the non-resident parent who
uses every opportunity to delay or avoid meeting their responsibilities
to their children. I fully accept that that is not the hon.
Gentleman’s intention, but I fear that that would be the outcome
if we were to accept them. In that spirit, I ask the hon. Gentleman to
withdraw the
amendment.
Mr.
Harper:
I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for
the detail that she has provided about the process. I am pleased about
the reassurance that there is no intention to use these rightly much
tougher sanctions until the systems are in place to give people
confidence that the calculations and the data are accurate. One of our
earlier concerns was that we would be using more robust sanctions
methods with ropey data, which would have been detrimental to the
commission’s reputation. I am happy to accept the
Under-Secretary’s assurances about the calculation process and
therefore the travel and curfew sanctions. However, I still have the
reservation that, if the commission applies to the court to have
someone committed to prison, that could still be one of the defences
that the person may have. I accept that some of the
“won’t pay” non-resident parents who are trying to
avoid their responsibilities will try to take such action. I have no
sympathy with them, and that is certainly not the intention of the
amendment. I am conscious of the assurances that have been given about
the calculation process. However, if the reason for non-compliance with
the order is that someone has a fundamental issue with the basis of
calculation—
Mrs.
McGuire:
Will the hon. Gentleman accept that there are
processes early in the procedure through which such misgivings can be
voiced and dealt with? I fear that the amendment would muddy the water
in appeals on sanctions. The calculation will have been dealt with
earlier, and there will have been ample opportunity to test whether it
was accurate. The appeal should concentrate on the appropriateness of
the sanction to the principle of whether someone should pay maintenance
to their child.
Mr.
Harper:
I thank the Under-Secretary for that intervention.
Will she run through the evidence that the commission will have to
furnish to the court to demonstrate how the calculation was made and
what processes have happened? That might help to reassure me to the
extent that I would not press amendment No. 113 and the others in the
group. The court will have to satisfy itself that the right processes
have been undertaken, and there will need to be an opportunity to
challenge the assessment. Non-resident parents who are still
challenging the payment will need assurance about those processes, and
confidence that the figures are right. If the court can assure itself
in that regard, it will be able to agree to the order for committal to
prison with the confidence that there will not be an
injustice.
The
Chairman:
Order. The Under-Secretary may wish to respond.
If the hon. Gentleman wishes to make a further speech I shall call him
again.
Mrs.
McGuire:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I should have
appreciated that because we are in Committee I can respond in far more
detail. Obviously, if the commission took a non-compliance case to
court, it would be incumbent on it to garner all material about the way
in which the relevant person had been dealt with. That way, the court
could be satisfied that every opportunity was given to the non-resident
parent to accept his responsibility to his child—or, in a
minority of cases, her responsibility to her
child.
We
do not anticipate court action on a whim. We will ensure that all the
processes that we have mentioned are undertaken in the interests of
fairness and transparency. Under the current system, the court does not
reopen the maintenance calculation, and in many respects the procedure
is not new. Nevertheless, I should be delighted to give the hon.
Gentleman more detail on the approach that the commission will take in
going to court and to write to hon. Members with that information,
which obviously I do not have to hand at this
juncture.
We
should recognise that we are talking about compliance with the order to
pay maintenance to the child and not the calculation. We are in danger
of getting bogged down in the arithmetic, rather than addressing
whether a non-resident parent is trying to avoid their responsibility
to maintain their child. I appreciate that it is not the hon.
Gentleman’s intention to do that. However, were the amendment to
be accepted, it would make life far more difficult for children and for
the parent with care than he appreciated
earlier.
Mr.
Harper:
I am pleased with those assurances. There is
perhaps a reason for pressing the issue. Under the current system one
cannot rely on the front-end
processes, due to their not being robust in terms of the calculation and
the processes, as a result of which the existing sanctions that are
available have not been used to the extent that they should have
been.
Mrs.
McGuire:
I hope that the hon. Gentleman appreciates that I
have commented on that matter on a couple of occasions. I understand
that people want to feel confident that the new process is robust in
terms of the calculation as well as the rest of the procedure. I
understand where he is coming from, but I am not sure whether, if he
presses the amendment, he will get the outcome that he really
wants.
Mr.
Harper:
I thank the Under-Secretary for her intervention,
although she may have intervened a little too soon, because I am
getting to the point where I will agree with
her.
I
am concerned about ensuring that the court feels able to use and agree
to that sanction, if it is appropriate. Given the
Under-Secretary’s assurances about writing to Committee members
to set out the robust process that will have to be undertaken, the ways
in which the court will be able to know that the calculations have been
properly undertaken and how the non-resident parent will be able to
follow through a number of appeal processes, which means that the court
will be able to reach a position from which it is comfortable that the
correct outcome has been reached, I am happy to beg to ask leave to
withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
‘If the Commission
fails to enforce a maintenance assessment in a reasonable period, the
parent with care can request that a liability order be issued which can
be enforced independently through the county
court.’.
Mr.
Harper:
I will be relatively brief. We probably covered
most of the issues that I wanted to raise in the earlier part of this
debate. I thank the Under-Secretary for her care in undertaking that
discussion and for her generosity this
morning.
The clause
and the amendments are important, because they go to the heart of how
we will enforce the provision. I want to tease out the detail, because
we want to ensure that, given the more robust nature of the commission
and the processes that it will undertake, we get to a situation where
people who do not pay the maintenance that they are meant to pay are
pursued by the commission and that all the sanctions available are used
to ensure that the children involved are properly
supported.
Finally,
I shall have a brief word about new clause 4. We discussed this matter
at the beginning of the debate on the Bill, when we took evidence. New
clause 4 would effectively give the parent with care the ability, where
the commission has failed to enforce the maintenance assessment within
a reasonable period, to have that liability order enforced
independently through the court system. That would provide a little bit
of competition for the commission to keep it on its toes, and it would
also give the parent with care a little bit more clout in the system to
ensure that they are not being deprived of the income that they are
entitled to on behalf of the child by any failings in the
commission.
The new
clause is probably informed more by history than by the more hopeful
future, but it is worthy of consideration, and I shall listen with
interest to the Under-Secretary’s comments on it and on clause
23.
2.15
pm
Danny
Alexander:
I just want to say a brief word about new
clause 4. I can see why CMEC would not regard the notion of competition
that the hon. Gentleman has advanced as particularly congenial. Perhaps
it is more a recognition of the frustration that a lot of parents with
care feel about the way in which the current system operates: they can
feel a sense of powerlessness when their case is stuck in the system
for months or even years on end with no ability to take independent
action to achieve
enforcement.
I
suspect that this is another opportunity for the Under-Secretary to
mention her aspirations for the speed and efficiency with which CMEC
should deal with cases in future. Returning to an earlier discussion,
which I shall not repeat, I still have doubts whether CMEC will be able
to act quickly and efficiently given staffing numbers and IT problems.
However, if the system were to remain administratively as it is, I
might be tempted to support the new clause. As the hon. Gentleman has
said, one suspects that, in a spirit of hopefulness, it is not a matter
on which to divide the Committee.
Mrs.
McGuire:
I shall not go over the ground that we have
already covered. Suffice to say that the collection and enforcement
powers in clauses 19 to 28 are being introduced to provide a faster and
more streamlined enforcement process. Much of that will be achieved by
giving the commission administrative powers—for example, the
powers to deduct money from bank accounts and to remove
passports.
Can I deal
with the issue about “competition” between the parent
with care and the commission? It is a slightly unfortunate use of the
word “competition.” These issues are not straightforward
and often more than one family is involved. I will highlight that point
with an example: the non-resident parent has one child with parent with
care A, another child with parent with care B and supports two children
of his own with his present partner. To be honest with the hon. Member
for Forest of Dean, if, in such a situation, we were to allow a parent
to pursue an independent action, that parenet would obviously see it as
perfectly legitimate. However, if parent A were to say that three other
children were involved in the family scenario, we would almost be in
the position of having, as the hon. Gentleman has pointed out,
competing ways in which the powers would be enacted. It would be
unfortunate if, because one parent wanted to pursue the matter through
the courts, the commission was not able to take into account the
situation of the three other children in that
family.
Mr.
Harper:
The new clause was deliberately drafted to address
the enforcement of the maintenance assessment. What the Minister has
said about the
complexity of family arrangements should be taken into account when the
maintenance assessment is done. The new clause is about what happens
once the parent with care gets that assessment. If the commission fails
to enforce the assessment within a reasonable time, the parent with
care can get it enforced. The new clause is not about getting the
maintenance assessment done for the parent with care; it is about
taking into account the complexity of other family arrangements once
the assessment has been completed.
Mrs.
McGuire:
Let me put it another way. If the commission and
a parent with care had concurrent or interchangeable abilities of
enforcement, there would be a risk of overlap and duplication that
would cause confusion and increase costs. Enabling parents with care to
enforce the commissioner’s maintenance assessments might
potentially provide the commission with a perverse incentive to divest
itself of the most difficult cases, leaving parents with care to pursue
a route through legal aid or to meet the costs of enforcement
themselves.
Mr.
Tim Boswell (Daventry) (Con): Does the Minister agree that
it is possible—indeed, it might be quite common—to
envisage a scenario in which there is a series of private arrangements
in relation to some children that operates concurrently with a CMEC
arrangement in relation to other children, where there is a different
non-resident parent? The question of overlapping jurisdiction cannot be
eliminated by the concerns that she has
expressed.
Mrs.
McGuire:
As the hon. Member for Forest of Dean has
highlighted, the issue relates to the lack of confidence that has been
built up over many years. We have all seen situations in which the
parent with care, with eminent justification, has felt that reasonable
and timely action has not been taken to get the maintenance orders.
Given all the discussions that we have had, we are confident that the
commission will take enforcement action within a reasonable time. That
should make it unlikely that the parent with care will feel the need to
take independent enforcement action through the county court. However,
there is a problem of overlapping and duplication, and we must
recognise that the frustrations that have built up in the current
situation often relate to the fact that it seems to take for ever and a
day to get a proper maintenance calculation. Obviously, with the
voluntary agreements and the changes that we have made, we will be
cutting through some of those difficulties, and I am not sure that the
new clause would enhance the power of parents under the new commission.
I ask the hon. Gentleman not to press new clause 4 to a
vote.
Mr.
Harper:
The Under-Secretary has conceded that the
intention of the Government, and the commission when it is set up, will
be to enforce maintenance assessments in a reasonable period. Assuming
that the commission fulfils that desire, the new clause would have no
effect, because the parent with care would be unable to exercise that
power. The parent with care would only be able to exercise that power
if the commission failed, so I cannot
see that the new clause would do any harm. Perhaps
competition is not the right word, but giving the commission an
incentive to get its act together and allowing pressure to be applied
from outside might be helpful, so allowing the Committee to decide on
the new clause would not be a bad
thing.
Question put
and agreed
to.
Clause
s
23
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
24 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
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