Clause 16
Child Maintenance and Other Payments
11:45 am
Paul Rowen (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Rochdale, Liberal Democrat)
The clause deals with changes to the way in which maintenance is calculated. I want to discuss amendments Nos. 46, 48, 49 and 47 and new clause 6.
I want to consider the new clause separately, so I shall start with the four amendments. The amendments address the new assessment process, which will be based on gross income for the non-resident parent with the data coming from HMRC. Although the change to using HMRC to provide the data is welcome, there is a concern that the data will be one or two years out of date, particularly for a self-employed, non-resident parent.
The Bill allows for reassessment, but only if income has risen or fallen by more than 25 per cent. The idea behind the amendments is to reduce the administrative burden on HMRC created by reassessments, which might mean that children end up receiving less under the new system. The amendment asks for an investigation into the effects of varying this level on the caseload of the CMEC. We also need more information on the proportion of non-resident parents, both employed and unemployed, whose income differs substantially from one year to the next and who may have spells of unemployment in any one year.
I am not suggesting that that should happen annually, but given that we are discussing a new structure and a new assessment, we need to predict the effect of those changes on people in different income bands and the difference that that would make in principle to the level of maintenance that parents with care receive. I put it to the Minister that that could be carried out fairly quickly once the Bill has received Royal Assent, so that we can get some indication of the changes. The Minister may well say that it is a matter for the commission, as it is the body charged with dealing with that, but as Members of Parliament who will be dealing with individual cases, we need to know what information the parent with care will need to provide in order to initiate an appeal. I hope that the Minister can give us some idea of what the level of information will be.
New clause 6 is slightly different from new clause 2. Both new clauses would place a duty on statutory authorities to investigate non-resident parents. In the case of new clause 2, that investigative duty is with HMRC, and in the case of new clause 6 it is with the commission. I want to quote two pieces of evidence that were given at the start of our deliberations about non-resident parents who are self employed. Referring to the resident parent having to provide information to the CSA, as it currently constituted, in order for it to initiate an investigation, Stephen Geraghty said that if the CSA can provide it, it will do so.