Clause 8
Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill
12:00 pm
Mark Harper (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Forest of Dean, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 99, in clause 8, page 3, line 26, at end insert
‘, except for functions relating to collection and enforcement exercised under sections 19 to 28 of this Act.’.
The amendment would limit the scope of contracting out under clause 8. At the moment, clause 8 will enable any function of the commission to be contracted out, and I think that it would be inappropriate for certain functions to be contracted out to private organisations. The specific area that the amendment would prevent from being contracted out is the collection and enforcement powers that are specifically in clauses 19 to 28. In a moment, I will go through each of those in turn to explain why I think that contracting out would be inappropriate.
I want to say at the beginning that we very much support tough enforcement and collection powers. Indeed, it is specifically because the enforcement powers are very tough and robust that it would be inappropriate for them to be executed by an organisation to which they had been contracted out. Because they are tough and powerful, they should be exercised by only CMEC itself. It is worth saying that some functions should remain properly within the purview of the public sector and not be contracted out.
The first few clauses about which we are concerned—clauses 19 to 22—relate to collection. I do not want to go through the deduction of earnings orders at the moment because we will have a chance to discuss them later. Although the broad principle of allowing CMEC to take money and apply for deductions of earnings is correct, it is not a power that I would be comfortable having contracted out to a private company or organisation, as that would allow them to seek orders to take money directly from someone’s earnings.
A number of the first few clauses to which the amendment refers relate to such collection mechanisms, be they deductions from earnings, or some lump sum deduction orders. In some senses, however, those are the least objectionable issues. My main concerns about clauses 19 to 28 relate to some of the rightly tough enforcement mechanisms. Clause 25, on the disqualification from holding or obtaining travel authorisation, specifically gives the commission the power to make an order without even having to get the permission of a court. It will be allowed to make an order and to take away a person’s travel documents. That is a tough power, and it is not appropriate for the commission to contract it out and allow others to carry it out on its behalf. Given that the commission has to take into account whether a person needs travel authorisation to earn a living, it is a judgment that the commission should properly have to make, not simply contract out.
When the Minister was talking about the use of important powers to collect fines, he recognised that some of the powers would be disproportionate for that purpose. For the same reason, it would be inappropriate for the commission to contract them out.