Clause 9
Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill
4:00 pm
Paul Rowen (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Rochdale, Liberal Democrat)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that comment. Yes, of course, that principle is worth sustaining; it is hugely important to the credibility of the new organisation. We have lost a generation of children who have not received the child maintenance, and therefore the start in life, to which they were entitled. There are still people who look to Parliament and to the Government to restore their confidence and ensure that the money that they are owed is paid. That must be the new agency’s overriding target. It must address that issue, and I hope that the Minister will deal with that point. The Bill is all very well and good, but it contains warm words and it is not specific. The amendments are an attempt to be specific.
Amendment No. 82 deals with the details of complaints. Many Members will say that the way in which complaints are dealt with is absolutely disgraceful. I have not been in this place as long as many other Members, but when somebody gets a £25—I hesitate to say—book token or whatever as a fob-off for a significant period of considerable emotional distress, I find that it is an insult to people’s intelligence. At the end of a long process, during which they have had to fight for every penny and make the CSA admit that the mistake lies with how it has handled the case, not with the case itself, that is an insult.
I hope that the new agency has a much better way of handling complaints, and that it will pay compensation. We had a debate about these matters earlier in the Committee; the fact that people are not prepared to admit that they are liable is not acceptable. We want to see in place a really strong system that will handle complaints and ensure that redress is dealt with and delivered speedily, and not with the insult that occurs at present. We want to see some of the complaints listed in the annual report and a general picture of what has happened, and we will need to know how complaints were dealt with.
We would also support amendment No. 13, which is about ensuring that the House has an opportunity to debate the report. It ought to be automatic that CMEC, at least in its early stages, reports to the House annually to demonstrate why it is a fresh start, and how it is dealing with some of the historic problems.