Schedule 4
Child Maintenance and Other Payments
12:30 pm
Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 115, in schedule 4, page 63, line 6, leave out paragraph 2.
Schedule 4 is really what clause 16 is all about. Although we have had considerable debate on clause 16, it is only two lines long. Schedule 4, to which it refers, is the real meat of our discussions and gives effect to the important changes that we have been debating within the last group.
Amendment No. 115 is a probing amendment. I do not want to remove paragraph 2 from the Bill, but I want to use this opportunity to put a number of questions to the Minister about whether the move from net to gross income and the other measures in schedule 4 will achieve greater simplicity and operational efficiencies.
One of the big changes that schedule 4 gives effect to is the use of HMRC data from the latest tax year for which HMRC has details, which is a sensible move. However, as has been brought out in the previous debate, much will depend on the sources of information within HMRC to which CMEC has access and how that information will be accessed. It is worth noting the number of different IT systems within HMRC, all of which will have to work well and communicate seamlessly with CMEC, as I believe happens in Australia where there is a direct data link with the Australian transport agency. The Minister knows that Australia is one of my favourite countries when we discuss child support. Perhaps the Minister will tell us what he and his officials have learned that he thinks will be of use with regard to data sharing and direct computer links between HMRC and CMEC.
On those different IT systems, it is worth putting on the record that there are different systems within HMRC for dealing with self-assessment cases, pay-as-you-earn, repayment of taxes owed, national insurance and tax credits, of which I will have more to say later in our discussions.
Questions arise from the combination of earnings from self-employment and from employment. How will that work? What will happen when someone has more than one job on which they pay tax through PAYE? HMRC does not routinely link PAYE records in cases where a person has one or more jobs simultaneously. HMRC collects information on employment-related benefits that form part of gross income, but, again, that is collected from employers through a different process from PAYE.