Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill
House of Lords debates, 2 June 2008, 4:31 pm
Lord Skelmersdale (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Conservative)
My Lords, this may be thought to be a curious piece of drafting, but it provides a hook on which I can develop an argument. Since Report, I have been made aware of a very disturbing incident which does not appear to be covered by the current wording of paragraph 6 of Schedule 4. The non-resident father of a young child wrote to me to explain that, between September 2006 and June 2007, he had had continuous weekly contact with his child. During that period, there was in place a very amicable private maintenance arrangement whereby he paid his former partner £50 a week. In June 2007, the mother of his child, who was the main carer, was advised by the CSA that such level of contact should entail the non-resident parent paying only £35 a week. She reacted forcibly by limiting the father's contact with his son so that she could continue to receive the £50 a week. The three people involved—the father, the mother and, most importantly, the child—are all losers in this case.