Report (6th Day)

Part of Welfare Reform Bill – in the House of Lords at 6:45 pm on 25 January 2012.

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Photo of Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Chair, Information Committee (Lords), Chair, Information Committee (Lords) 6:45, 25 January 2012

My Lords, I will just take two minutes to deal with that, if I may.

First, I have encountered the break-up of marriage at a variety of levels. I was involved in consistorial legal work before I was elected in 1983, and I spent most of my time in the House of Commons as a spokesman for my parliamentary group and then as a chairman of a Select Committee which endlessly looked at the 1991 Act and all the bits and pieces that flowed from it. It has been quite clear to me as a result of all that experience that if anybody tries to take some lessons and principles from the cases that are conducted in the High Court of the land, dealing with many thousands of pounds at a very high level, where things are fought over and the big silk hanky brigade of the legal establishment makes lots of money, they are a million miles away from ordinary people whose families break up week in, week out. I do not think it is safe to start contemplating the amendment tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, and its consequences, when seen from that perspective. That is not what this is about.

I mentioned Select Committees. I just want to draw noble Lords' attention to the fact that the current Select Committee in the other place recently produced a report on this which recommended that where parents with care had taken all reasonable steps to investigate a private arrangement but that was not possible or appropriate, no charges should be made. In my view, there has never been an established case made for charging either parents with care or non-resident parents.

The Henshaw report was an extremely scrappy piece of work. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, rightly pointed to the fact that even the Henshaw committee, upon which most of the Government's case is made, clearly said that it did not want any disincentive effect to be imposed as a result of charging. It made a different case altogether. Incidentally, the Henshaw committee report was as clever as to say that we should close down the CSA and have a residual body to chase debts. That is about how sensible some of the recommendations in the Henshaw committee report were. As far as I am concerned, it is true that it was discredited before the ink was dry and it went for ministerial consideration.

This issue is about whether charging will assist collaboration and co-operation between separating parties. I can see no understandable circumstances that charges would make it easier for people to stay together longer. I do not see how that case can be made or that it has been made.

The system we are setting up for 2014 will be much cheaper for a variety of reasons. From an administrative point of view, there is no need to put money into the system because the assessment process, the computer systems and so on will make the whole administration of this, if it all works, a lot easier. It is entirely affordable. The way in which some Ministers have been rubbishing the system is disgraceful. It is not a perfect system but it supports 870,000 children-I repeat, 870,000 children. This is not an insignificant institution which could be done without. Nudging 50 per cent of single parents with care get something like only £20 a week. That is the extent of the money that they derive from the system, but it is essential for those who use it.

Quite simply, collaboration between the parents who are separating will not be assisted by charging. It would inevitably result in less money flowing to the children in the charge of the parent with care. There is no case whatever for charging, so I am compromising greatly in supporting the entirely reasonable amendment moved by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay. Speaking for myself, I would scrap the whole idea and not give it house room. I hope that the House will come quickly to a resolution and I encourage noble Lords to support the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord.