| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
Secondly, transition has been only lightly touched on. It is not possible, despite Sir David Henshaw’s report, to have a clean break. If an NRP has a new relationship and a new child, there may also be a child in the old system and a child in the system introduced in 2000. If maintenance is to be arranged voluntarily in the new relationship, the arrangements in the two previous cases have to be recalculated. There is no choice. On average, every new case coming into the system has 2.5 linked cases. I have traced 29 linked cases. They all have to be recalculated. That is why the computers failed last time. I hope that my noble friend will be able to tell us how the linked cases will be dealt with. Any new case under the new system means that the old cases have to be reassessed; otherwise, the NRP is paying too much to all three families.
It is absurd that something like
three-quarters of those on the child maintenance assessment system are
parents with care on benefit. In turn, the NRPs are largely—60
or 70 per cent of them—on tax credits or jobseeker’s
allowance. As a state, we are paying money to them, and if only we
could net off the maintenance due to the parent with care and pay the
NRP net, we would not need to redesign the system at all. We would get
rid of that problem, which forms the bulk of the cases in the agency.
It is bizarre. We
24 July 2006 : Column 1589
Finally, I thank the staff. They have been mentioned today. They have done a heroic job under difficult, demanding and often abusive circumstances. As a result of their work, around 1 million children are getting maintenance that they would not otherwise get.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I welcome my noble friend’s welcome of the general principles on disregard and more co-operation. As to her two worries, Sir David said that a clean break was necessary, and I have already given his reasons for that. He recognised that more work needed to be done to explore the practicalities of that approach. He will be taking that work forward in the next stage. That is why we are having two consultations. We considered it appropriate to bring his first report to Parliament as soon as possible, to state the key things that we are in agreement with and those areas in which further work needs to be undertaken, leading to the White Paper later on. We think this is the best way to consider the kinds of issues that my noble friend has raised.
My noble friend’s second point was to question whether this will raise more money. She said that it would, but that it would depend on leverage by the parent with care. That is an important factor, particularly for vulnerable parents with care, and we must ensure that this system can operate to their benefit. Clearly, some of the work will be on the advice, guidance and focus of that work. It will be open to the parent with care to seek an assessment from the new organisation and to pursue that, but I am taken with the points raised by my noble friend and will consider them carefully.
Baroness Noakes: My Lords, the Minister said that he accepts the recommendation that there should be a clean sheet and a new organisation. That new organisation will need new staff and—God forbid—new computer systems and all that goes with that. At the same time, there is what the Minister referred to as the “residuary body”. He makes it sound as if it is a diminishing body but given the continuing problems—the backlog of payments, the unsettled cases—it will be no smaller than the current CSA, and possibly even bigger, to sort out the problems. So we have something at least as big as the existing CSA and something else. What estimates have the Government made of the cost? They must have made some estimates or they could not have accepted Sir David Henshaw’s recommendation. Will the Minister put that in the context of the 5 per cent efficiency savings, to which his department has already committed as part of the current comprehensive spending review?
Lord
Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I am grateful to
the noble Baroness for referring once again to the challenge my
department faces in meeting efficiency targets. I am ever mindful of
that. Clearly, more work needs to be done on costings, which will take
place
24 July 2006 : Column 1590
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope: My Lords, the House will want to acknowledge the service that Sir David Henshaw has done in producing his report, but the Minister is right to detect caution in the welcome for it because it is short of detail and of a timetable. The Minister will know that this is the third White Paper about this agency, and I hope that it is third time lucky.
In the White Paper will the Minister make it clear that in the clean break, to which he referred, that Sir David Henshaw recommends—which, as I understand it, entails a move to a commissioner of services rather than a government agency as we have come to know it—the contractualisation and the role played by private contractors will be an improvement on that which the EDS played in providing computer services to the CSA. If there is a White Paper, surely that means there is little, if any, prospect of a legislative slot in the Queen’s Speech to get these changes enacted. When, for example, will the 46,000 resident parents with care who were on income support under the old scheme, and getting paid maintenance but getting no financial advantage, be able to take advantage of this system?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his cautious welcome, and, indeed, for the discussions we have had, in view of his enormously valuable experience in this area. He says that Sir David Henshaw’s first report is short of detail. We are damned if we do and we are damned if we don’t. We deliberately chose, first, to ask Sir David to produce his redesign very quickly; and, secondly, to bring it to Parliament to allow for a short but, I hope, helpful debate on the general principles leading to a comprehensive White Paper later in the year. We could of course have not published his report and done all the work internally and then produced a comprehensive White Paper. I think ours was a better approach.
As the noble Lord says, there have been many attempts to improve the CSA. All have run against enormous challenges. The more of a consensus we can get on the way forward the better, and we think that this approach is the best way for that.
On
contractualisation, certainly Sir David Henshaw suggests that he would
commend the development of
24 July 2006 : Column 1591
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, I hope I am not alone in my concern about the point on disregard. How can it be right that a father who stays and supports his family will pay a higher effective marginal rate of tax than one who does not? That cannot be right and that cannot encourage families to stick together.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, neither was it right to insist that parents on benefit go down the route of the CSA. That simply stopped parents from acting alongside the issue of, first, no disregard, and then the £10 disregard. It removed the incentives for compliance and for parents trying to resolve these issues together. Surely, it is right to start at first base and to ask: what can we do to encourage parents to try and resolve child support issues? Removing the compulsion from parents with care on benefits and ensuring that they keep more of the money paid by the non-resident parent are the incentives required to make that happen. Over 13 years we have seen the problems of trying to operate the system according to the principles enunciated by the noble Lord. Most of us have reached the conclusion that it simply is not working
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, perhaps I may remind the noble Lord, who was not around at the time, that when this system was first mooted in, I think, 1989, there was great publicity, and the electorate and mothers were promised that it would be very much better than the system that applied at that time, and that the Treasury would save £400 million a year. Now we find that, instead of the Treasury saving £400 million a year, it has cost the Treasury—that is the taxpayers—£200 million a year. So we are £600 million worse off every year so far as I can see. That has been an absolute disaster.
I am concerned about what assurances can be given, especially bearing in mind that there will be a larger disregard, that the costs will not go up further than £200 million per year. What about the penalties which non-absent parents will apparently receive, for example, curfews, tagging and loss of passports? Those penalties seem worse than those that muggers and old-people bashers often get from our courts. I hope that has been considered.
My final question is on the compulsory registration of fathers. That will be extremely difficult, particularly in the case of unmarried single young mothers who perhaps have several relationships, who may not know who the father is, and who will not disclose the names of all the possible fathers. I hope that the Minister will think about that before he puts this into operation.
24 July 2006 : Column 1592
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the words on compulsory registration of fathers have been chosen very carefully. We will seek views on this matter. I understand the points the noble Lord raised. Going back to the original point of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, anything we can do to get more information in tracing non-resident parents is to be desired in getting a more effective system. We must balance out those two considerations.
I was not here during the debate referred to, but I have read with great interest the Second Reading debate in your Lordships’ House led by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, when the then Government's proposals were put forward and the amount of resource they thought would be gained by the taxpayer. Alas, it has not turned out to be so. The £200 million savings are initial estimates made by Sir David Henshaw, based on the assumption that, with the removal of compulsion, the caseload of the new organisation will be considerably less than the existing caseloads, and there will be a much more efficient administration system.
On enforcement measures, it is already possible for driving disqualifications to take place and for custodial sentences to be given. We are looking at extending that to passport withdrawal, tagging and the publication of successful prosecutions. I would say to the noble Lord that failing to provide financial support for your children is a very serious matter. We know that the effect on the life outcomes of those children in poverty can be considerable and devastating. It is very important that the message goes out that we are getting serious about the matter. For too long the CSA has been seen as a soft-touch agency that you can run rings around. We have to move away from that. The answer to those who evade and seek to evade responsibility for their children must be that there will be consequences if they do not support their children.
Armed Forces Bill
6.19 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Drayson): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD SPEAKER (Baroness Hayman) in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Assisting an enemy]:
Lord Astor of Hever moved Amendment No. 1:
The noble Lord said: I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 33A, 34A and 34B.
The purpose of Amendments
Nos. 1 and 33A is to extend the reference of offences to include
civilians who are subject to service discipline. Increasingly, we
24 July 2006 : Column 1593
Amendments Nos. 34A and 34B are intended to seek clarity of the definition of what we mean by the enemy. Today, the threat to the country comes not necessarily from organised nation states but from ad hoc groups of terrorists. There would be merit in changing the clause to reflect the needs of our time and to ensure that the courts are in no doubt of Parliament's intention that the disclosure of information useful to an enemy extends to those who seek to harm us, but who may not have been classified as an enemy in the past.
It is clearly not the Government's intention that a service man or woman who provides information to terrorists should not be subject to prosecution under Clause 17. I entirely accept that. The amendment would cover the disclosure of unauthorised information to foreign powers or journalists and I hope that it would be easier to prosecute under the amended clause than under the Official Secrets Act 1989. The information in question would not need to be government information. It would cover, for example, an employee of one of our defence companies leaking information about our equipment programme, the passing of which might be prejudicial to the security and defence of the United Kingdom.
The drafting of the amendment accommodates the Government's concerns, ensuring that the offence is not too narrow, retaining the words, “would be, or might be”. I beg to move.
Earl Attlee: Before speaking to the amendments, I remind the Committee that I have an interest as a serving officer in the TA and I am subject to service law as we speak.
I confess to having tabled numerous, detailed amendments, but the good news is that I do not intend to take very long speaking to them and I hope that the Minister can give a succinct response. Amendments Nos. 2, 7, 8, 13 and 34 cover the use of the terms “lawful excuse” and “reasonable excuse”. Offences in the first few clauses are very serious. Why do some clauses provide for “without lawful excuse”, while others contain the provision “without reasonable excuse”? What is the legal difference? Have I wrecked the Bill by swapping them around, or does that not make much difference? If it makes no real difference, why should we have the two terms?
Amendments
Nos. 3 and 32 build on the amendments to which I have just spoken, but
also provide an opportunity to consider the term
“officer”. Most Members
24 July 2006 : Column 1594
The Bill should be a working document. No doubt it will be included in the manual of service law, when it is published. It would be better if the Bill was clearer about whether we are talking about commissioned or non-commissioned officers.
Turning to Amendments Nos. 4 and 5, Clause 1 creates wide and very serious offences. For instance, subsection (1)(c) makes it an offence not to pass on any information received from the enemy. If a serviceman captures an enemy soldier who makes it clear that he is very hungry, a clever serviceman may know—I repeat, know—that that is significant because it indicates that the enemy's logistic system may be breaking down. On the other hand, it could be insignificant, because all soldiers complain that they are hungry.
Amendment No. 6 is very similar. The Bill makes it an offence to give supplies to the enemy. How far does that go? For instance, what about medical supplies? Is it illegal to give medical supplies to the enemy if that will not compromise your tactical position?
Finally, the Committee will agree that desertion is a very serious offence. There are, rightly, severe penalties for desertion in connection with operations, but rather light penalties otherwise. The Bill seems to have maximum prison sentences of either two or 10 years. There is no provision in the Bill for, say, five years. Although I am content with the concept of “relevant operations” attracting heavier penalties, it may not always be possible to make that charge stick. If the charge is for only ordinary desertion, as it were, the maximum penalty is only two years. My amendment suggests 10 years, but I have gone to 10 years only to be consistent with the rest of the Bill’s drafting.
Lord Garden: The Liberal Democrats have no amendments in this group, but I am sympathetic to the first eight amendments, which seem to provide some sensible clarification. On Amendment No. 34, I am less certain about the concept of what would become in the Bill “reasonable authority”. I wait to hear what the Minister has to say on that.
I am slightly worried about the new amendments, Amendments Nos. 34A and 34B, which replace the previous Amendment No. 35 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever. They seem to me to miss out groups of possible enemies. For example, there is the requirement to provide security and defence for dependent territories, which does not seem to be encapsulated in the new amendments. I wonder whether “enemy” is a well enough understood term to leave it as the Bill suggests.
On Amendment
No. 36, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, which would increase the
punishment from two years to 10 years, as the Committee will discover
when we consider how the Bill as a whole is
24 July 2006 : Column 1595
Lord Lyell: I support my noble friend Lord Astor. He made a very competent and clear point on persons who should be tied in to, have a good understanding of and be subject to service discipline. Much of that was covered earlier in consideration of the Bill, so I apologise to the Committee that, for very good reasons, I was not available to give my opinion on Second Reading. Indeed, if I may say so, I am immensely grateful to the Minister and other noble Lords who have kept me up to date with the proceedings, arguments and much of the correspondence on the Bill. I hope that, in his usual sympathetic vein, and in that of the kindness that he has shown to me, the Minister will spread a little of that towards the amendments proposed by my noble friend Lord Astor, with the support of the noble Lord, Lord Garden.
6.30 pm
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: Perhaps I may take a second of the Committee’s time to say what a pleasure it is for all of us to see my noble friend Lord Lyell back in his place. I support each of the amendments moved so succinctly by my noble friend Lord Attlee. In particular, I await with great interest the explanation for the distinction made in one instance for “lawful excuse” and in several others for “reasonable excuse”. Since part of the object of this largely admirable Bill is to provide clarity for service people, it would be easier to understand that they will have protection if there is a “reasonable excuse” than if they are told that there is a “lawful excuse”, which would draw them into matters of law which may leave them feeling less than certain. These amendments are of particular importance and I look forward to hearing the noble Lord’s explanation.
Lord Drayson: I, too, am pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, in his place. I am sure that the whole House will join me in wishing him a continued speedy recovery. The noble Lord, Lord Astor, asked a specific point on a letter. I will look carefully at what the noble Lord has said. It is my understanding that the point has been covered in a letter to the spokesman in another place or in a supplementary memorandum, which were both published in a Select Committee report in another place. I will check that point and get back to the noble Lord as soon as I can.
Amendment No. 1 seeks to
broaden the offence of assisting the enemy to include civilians subject
to service discipline. Civilians subject to service discipline are
subject to a specified range of offences; that is, those of criminal
conduct and some disciplinary offences—for example, looting and
contravention of Standing Orders. A decision was taken not to apply all
the service disciplinary offences to civilians as we do not think that
it is appropriate to create or expect the same disciplinary
relationship between the services and the civilians who support them.
Some cases of assisting an enemy will amount
24 July 2006 : Column 1596
I will now speak to the remaining amendments tabled to this clause and also deal with similar Amendments Nos. 2, 8, 13, 34 and 36 on the burden of “lawful” and “reasonable”. Existing Clause 1 gives a defence of “lawful excuse”, which would allow a defence that an accused had express or implied authority or whose action is justified by law. “Reasonable excuse” gives a wider defence, which would allow a court martial to look at all the circumstances and decide whether the conduct of the accused was reasonable. It is appropriate that the narrower defence should apply to an offence of intentionally assisting an enemy. Conversely, in Clause 2, for the offence of misconduct on operations it is felt that the wider defence of “reasonable” is more appropriate, as is also the case in Clause 17 where a similar point has been made. It is the same for Amendment No. 13 where again a similar point has been made.
With regard to Amendments Nos. 4 and 5, which are proposed to Clause 1, we believe that “significant” is already implicit in the clause. “Knowingly” is already covered in the clause by the word “intentionally”. On Amendment No. 6, the noble Lord proposes that the giving of medical supplies to an enemy is excepted from the offence. Where it is proper to give an enemy medical treatment, that is already covered by “lawful excuse”, but there should not be a general permission to give the enemy medical supplies.
Amendment No. 8, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, would add an additional defence of acting on the authority of a superior officer. The amendment is unnecessary because the defence of “lawful excuse” would include acting under the orders or authority of a superior officer. Amendment No. 32 is unnecessary because the definition of “superior officer” in Clause 367 already includes warrant officers and non-commissioned officers. Amendment No. 33A to Clause 17 seeks to broaden the offence of disclosing information useful to an enemy to include civilians subject to service discipline. For the same reasons as I described when dealing with Clause 1, we do not think that it is appropriate to extend this offence to civilians. With regard to Amendments Nos. 34A and 34B, Clause 17 uses the wording,
to which the amendments propose to add the words,- “or
prejudicial to the security or defence of the United Kingdom or Her
Majesty’s forces and their allies”.
I suspect that the intention behind the amendments is to widen the offence. In doing so, it goes into an area which is already covered by the Official Secrets Acts. The offence of disclosing information useful to an enemy is needed to deal precisely with information which is useful in any way to an enemy. While these amendments would broaden the existing offence, there is other legislation which deals with threats to national and military security.
24 July 2006 : Column 1597
Amendment No. 36 would raise the maximum term of imprisonment for the offence from two years to 10 years. Similar offences are contained in the service discipline Acts and carry a sentence of a maximum of two years. We see no need to change that. The proposed maximum is too high, given that more serious offences, such as assisting the enemy, can, if appropriate, be charged, which carry a greater potential punishment.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I am very grateful to the noble Lord for dealing with the points which I raised about the words “lawful” and “reasonable”, but will he look at that again before Report? “Lawful” is not defined in the sense that he described. Without a specific definition, in a very narrow sense, of “lawful excuse” along the lines that the Minister has outlined, many people would suppose that if there were a “reasonable excuse”, it would also be a “lawful excuse”.
For my part, I hope that any court martial dealing with any charge under Clause 1 would always feel it necessary to look at all the circumstances and that that would be so whether the charge was “reasonable excuse” or merely “lawful excuse”. I hope that this might be looked at again because it is a little more difficult than it seems.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: I support the Minister in his argument about not extending the offences in Clauses 1 and 2 to,
Such persons are defined in Schedule 15 to the Bill, which covers a very wide number of people. In particular, it covers persons residing or,which includes families of servicemen who are posted abroad, and so on. I declare an interest as having represented Mr Martin, a 17 year-old, in the proceedings that were brought against him for murder by way of court martial. It is inappropriate, and I shall move amendments in respect of civilians being dealt with by way of a court martial. Certainly, when we are dealing with offences that are specific to those who are members of the Armed Forces, it is inappropriate that civilians should be caught by those offences. It may be that they may commit other offences in different ways and be subject to the jurisdiction of the civilian court or whatever, but they should not be brought before a court martial for disciplinary and service offences.Lord
Astor of Hever: I am grateful to all those who
have spoken to this group of amendments. I, too, should like to say how
delighted I am to see my noble friend Lord Lyell back in his place. I
thank the noble Lord, Lord Garden, for his sympathy for Amendment No.
1, and I take his point about leaving out groups of enemies. We will
look at that closely. I was delighted that my noble friend Lord Attlee
said that his
24 July 2006 : Column 1598
| Next Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |