Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill
10:47 am
Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)
I have a brief supplementary question. Why is CMEC being set up as a non-departmental public body rather than an executive Government agency? Surely the past 10 years tell us that parliamentary scrutiny will become much more important. Many people have put it to me that only an MP’s letter has made the CSA jump to try to sort out often intractable cases. As a non-departmental public body, it will be much more at arm’s length, and a number of hon. Members on both sides of the House are concerned about our ability to scrutinise, to hold Ministers to account and to get answers from CMEC.