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4.45 pm
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I am afraid that I am not particularly enamoured by Amendment No. 14 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood. It would make the abolition of Section 6 of the Child Support Act 1991—which, as he said, requires all parents with care claiming income support or income-based jobseeker’s allowance also to claim child support—conditional. The lifting of the Section 6 requirement would, according to the amendment, be subject to a review after three years. This review would be laid before Parliament to establish, in respect of parents with care on benefit, whether their overall position in relation to the receipt of adequate child maintenance had improved, deteriorated or, as the noble Lord said, remained the same.
I have difficulty with the amendment because I think that it enforces too rigid requirements on parents. Although the Government have an obligation to protect vulnerable citizens—indeed, someone said to me the other day that they are almost a replacement parent in some social security/DWP circumstances—we must not let their parental roles transform the country into a nanny state. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, may point out that there is a risk that when the legal obligation to seek statutory child maintenance is abolished for all parents, the number of parents with care on benefit who receive child maintenance may actually decrease from the already low figure of 156,000. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, made the same point.
I think we should recognise that the provision for child maintenance has not gone—the parent has simply been given the choice whether to use CMEC. I can only assume that the responsible and sensible parent will, indeed, claim. For the Government to keep an eye on the private maintenance arrangements—of which, as I said, I am not nearly as suspicious as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis—made by those on benefit, as the amendment demands, there must be a voluntary register. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, did not take in that in Committee the Minister said repeatedly that no such register will exist, although I sincerely regret that and do not think that the Minister shone his usual thoughtful light on this subject.
The basic problem, which was almost identified by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, is that the Minister—wrongly, I believe—is adamant that there should be no register of voluntary maintenance arrangements. Therefore, how will it be possible for the Secretary of State to prepare the report proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, in new subsection (2) of his amendment? I remain of the opinion that there should be a way of creating such a register but, even with the
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Further, if this Bill is to succeed, we must invest trust in its proposals. If CMEC is to encourage a voluntary sector of child maintenance payments as an alternative to statutory child maintenance payments, the Government must wholeheartedly stand behind their commitment and not temper voluntary arrangements with surreptitious control. This amendment could endanger the anticipated parental enthusiasm and commitment to the new arrangements as a result of state diktat, which, in part, is why the CSA failed. The result would surely be the worst of both scenarios. Until we have a voluntary register, I am afraid the issue is dead.
Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I thank each of the noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. It has been short but we have a shared vision that we want this to work, particularly for vulnerable parents and children. Clearly, we take different views on some key issues. Removing compulsion by repealing Sections 6 and 46 of the Child Support Act 1991 is the first step in moving to a new system of child maintenance. Compulsion was originally introduced as a means of recovering benefit expenditure and overturns any arrangements that may already be in place, even where these are working perfectly well. Forcing parents to use the state system in this way can result in conflict between parents. We know from our research that many parents would prefer to make their own child maintenance arrangements. As we have discussed extensively, both in Committee and last week, the information and support service will be made available to help parents make their own arrangements and the right decision. Those who do not want to use the statutory maintenance scheme will no longer be required to do so. Parents with care applying for benefit will have their details referred to the information and support service by Jobcentre Plus. If they choose to use the service, all the options available to them will be explained. Parents will be free to make a voluntary arrangement or an application to the statutory maintenance scheme.
Amendment No. 14 would mean that the repeal of Section 6 and Section 46 of the Child Support Act 1991 would only have permanent effect if, three years from commencement, the Secretary of State demonstrated in a report to Parliament that the new arrangements for child maintenance were successful. The measure of success would be whether more parents with care on benefit were receiving child maintenance, and whether the average amount of maintenance pay had increased. I sympathise with the noble Lord’s view that we should monitor the effect of the changes in the approach to
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My noble friend Lady Hollis expressed the concern that the information and support service will be squeezed out in due course and that the commission will look to reduce its caseload. This will be very much directed by the targets and framework that the sponsoring department, the DWP, puts in place. It is up to us to make sure that, if that were in the mind of the commission, it does not, and is not allowed to do it. That is clearly the intent. To go further than this, as the proposed amendment suggests, fails to recognise that it takes time to implement such fundamental change for child maintenance, and for the full extent of the benefits to be realised and recognised. We have set out a staged plan for the implementation of the changes within the Bill, which we believe will cumulatively deliver significant benefits for parents and children, but these changes are not due to be fully concluded until 2013. Indeed, the new basis of assessment will not operate until 2010, so to set a decision point within three years of the first change would be to create an artificial assessment. The full range of change planned would not have had time to be implemented and bed in, nor would the benefits have been able fully to feed through.
I believe that the amendment springs from concern that some parents may feel pushed and pressurised into agreeing voluntary arrangements whereas, in fact, they might be better off staying in the statutory scheme; or that if people leave the statutory maintenance scheme we will have no way of knowing what has happened to them or whether an effective arrangement is in place. We take the view that those concerns, although understandable, are unfounded. The commission’s objectives are drafted in a manner that requires it to maximise effective arrangements for all children who live apart from one or both of their parents. If we accepted the amendment, movement to the new system might be further delayed, as we could not be clear what system parents would be moving into.
All parents, regardless of their benefit status, should have the option, supported by the commission where necessary, to decide what are the best maintenance arrangements for them, and, most importantly, their children. Forcing them back into the statutory maintenance system would take that choice away from them.
Amendment No. 13 proposes that Clause 15 be removed altogether. I suspect that this amendment is to enable any further discussion that noble Lords may want to have on the subject, but removing Clause 15 would prevent the repeal of Sections 6 and 46, and leave parents with care on benefit with no real choice as to how they arrange maintenance for their children. Providing parents with choice and promoting parental responsibility is a key part of the changes that we are making to the child maintenance system.
We are moving to a child maintenance system that promotes greater parental responsibility, provides parents with more choice and enables and empowers them to
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The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, raised issues about the register of private agreements. The White Paper made clear that there were arguments both for and against a register and that the commission needed to take a view on whether to have one, with the concept of having a pilot. So we have not ruled it out; it is something on which we wish the commission to reflect.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, does that mean that there is no need for legislation to create such a register? I think that this is an important point.
Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I do not believe that we would need primary legislation. I will have to check to see whether it will be done by secondary legislation—I am getting nods from the Box. I do not think that primary legislation is needed to secure it; that is the message that I am getting.
I recap on the information and support service, which I know we have been through extensively, but is important. The existing system has only limited effect for the financially or personally vulnerable. The current system of compulsion targets only PWCs claiming income support or income-based jobseeker’s allowance. For those on low incomes but working, there are no focused services; using the Child Support Agency is purely voluntary. Those who feel vulnerable but are not on benefit get little support and even when on benefits, of those who feel personally vulnerable—I understand the point made by my noble friend Lady Hollis—and who apply to the CSA, only 32 per cent of benefit-claiming PWCs receive maintenance. Basing an assessment of vulnerability on receipt of benefits is not a practical option. Being on benefits is not intended to be a fixed state—even more so with the Government's emphasis on helping parents into work.
I hope that I have dealt with the points raised. I urge the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment because it would seriously impair the intent of the Bill and prevent something that I think that we all want to achieve.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope: My Lords, I certainly do not want to impair the overall strategic approach of the Bill. I take from what the Minister said that, whether it comes through annual reports, departmental research, Office for National Statistics research or any other means, there will be some way of identifying—whether it is in three, five or 10 years’ time—whether this is working or not. The Minister is nodding assent, which reassures me slightly. I want to be sure that this House will have a chance to monitor carefully the effects of this Bill.
5 pm
Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, to reassure the noble Lord, I think that it is vital that there is routine, robust reporting on performance, which has to include consideration of how many effective maintenance arrangements are in place and some analysis of their composition.
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While I am at the Dispatch Box, let me come back to the register of voluntary agreements and confirm the point that I made to the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, in response to his point about the need for primary legislation. If the register is just a simple one, it does not need primary legislation. However, if it were then to go on to encompass issues about enforcement, clearly that would require changes to primary legislation.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope: My Lords, that is helpful. Although these assurances are welcome, I still do not know how the Minister will get the information if these are voluntary agreements. If these new agreements are voluntary, I hope that CMEC or some successor body has some way of finding out about them.
Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord again. We would get details and an understanding of voluntary agreements in part in the same way as we do at the moment, through the Family Resources Survey and other surveys or research that the commission would wish to undertake. That would be the basis of that database and of understanding what is going on.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. I think that we are all heading in the right direction. Some of us have more concerns than others, but that is often the way of it. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 4 [Changes to the calculation of maintenance]:
Lord Skelmersdale moved Amendment No. 15:
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 16 and 17. The current formula for the payment of child maintenance provides for a reduction in child maintenance if the non-resident parent has overnight contact. The amount payable is decreased by one-seventh for one night a week, by two-sevenths for two nights a week, by three-sevenths for three nights and by half for four nights or more. For each night, therefore, that a child stays with a non-resident parent—worked out, incidentally, by an average over a 12-month period—child maintenance liability is reduced by one-seventh. In practice, this means that, unlike under the rules that applied in the family courts, there is a strong financial link between the amount of contact and the amount of maintenance paid. Having greater shared care means reduced child maintenance liability for the non-resident parent on the one hand and less child maintenance for the parent with care on the other. Predictably, this can lead to disputes over contact arrangements, particularly where there is already conflict and mistrust between parents.
I seek in these amendments to ask the Minister whether he believes that the Bill addresses the real issue, because I do not think that it does. For me, the real issue is that these provisions encourage parents to associate the level of child maintenance payments with the amount of staying contact—for want of a
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I am told that contact applications at court are often less about what contact should or should not take place and more about the impact on either parent of child maintenance payment responsibilities. The courts have always strongly and quite rightly discouraged the association of child maintenance payments with contact. The present shared care provisions completely undermine this principle and encourage both mothers and fathers to connect these two issues. It is inconsistent to state that a parent’s obligation to maintain a child is not dependent on whether they have contact and then to provide in legislation, as we are, a provision that encourages parents to limit the amount of the contact that a non-resident parent has with a child in order to maintain a certain level of financial support.
It is the children who are caught in this financial conflict between their parents and often their future relationship with a parent is detrimentally affected due to the argument over child support payments, which the legislation so inextricably links to contact. The current and proposed shared care provisions allow the parents to be motivated by financial, not welfare, considerations, which is not conducive for the family unit—a dispersed family unit certainly, but still a family unit of a sort. This detrimental impact on the family and the child outweighs any so-called benefits provided to either the parent with care or to the non-resident parent and, unless there is significant shared care, it should not impact on maintenance payments.
On this basis, I should like to hear the Minister’s response to the suggestion of raising the shared care threshold, which would reduce the current financial conflict caused between the parents and children and allow the parents to deal with co-parenting without having to consider financial incentives for one or either parent. I beg to move.
Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, for moving this amendment, which gives us a chance to talk a little about shared care. I should say up front that I disagree with his analysis. We have always been clear about not linking contact with maintenance. It would be wrong to link those inextricably. Shared care arrangements do not do that. Notwithstanding the fact that there is no inextricable link, which is right, the opportunity to have some financial adjustment to recognise the cost that a non-resident parent might incur in having contact with their children is reasonable.
The noble Lord’s amendment is more to do with the new arrangements in the Bill for the administration of shared care decisions. Currently it is often difficult for agency staff to decide cases where care is shared because the level of care undertaken by the non-resident
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Paragraphs 6 and 7 are intended to allow the commission to look forward as well as backwards in deciding what shared care reduction will be appropriate. This means, for example, that if both parents agree about the level of shared care that is expected, the commission can easily make an assessment based on that agreement. This will usually be administratively more straightforward for the commission than the current position, which requires the agency to obtain and assess hard evidence about the level of shared care in the past period, which is often as long as a year.
Paragraph 8 will provide regulations that allow the commission to make a maintenance calculation on the basis of an assumption as to the level of shared care. This will apply only when parents agree to share care but have not yet agreed on its frequency and there is no current or past pattern of care on which the decision can be based.
The detailed rules will be set out in affirmative regulations, so there will be an opportunity for further debate on this subject and for the commission to consider them. However, our current intention is that the assumption will be that care is shared for an average of one night a week, which is the level required to prompt the lowest reduction in maintenance—a seventh. That is the most common level of reduction allowed for shared care and the assumption will remain in place for a period of up to six months. If, during or at the end of the six-month period, an agreement on the frequency of care has been reached, that will be used as the basis for an ongoing adjustment to the maintenance calculation. If no agreement has been reached at the end of the six-month period, evidence of shared care from that six-month period will be used.
If Amendments Nos. 15 to 17 were accepted, the improvements provided by these provisions would be lost. It would also mean that recognition of shared care in certain cases could potentially be prevented until the first annual review of the case. We are fully aware that shared care is a contentious issue that attracts strong views. However, the consultation on the White Paper revealed no consensus among stakeholders for any change. Therefore, our current intention is that the shared care rules should remain largely unchanged. However, we will continue to examine the rules regarding cases of equal shared care and we wish to involve the commission in deciding the best way of proceeding.
Perhaps I may emphasise to the noble Lord that we had a lot of discussion with stakeholders about what the appropriate approach to shared care should be. Some stakeholders who represented parents with care said that there should be no adjustment, whereas
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