Schedule 4
Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill
6:15 pm
James Plaskitt (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Work and Pensions; Warwick and Leamington, Labour)
I am grateful to the hon. Members for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey and for South-West Bedfordshire for their speeches in support of the amendment. I am also grateful for the important intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, West. Let me try to reassure them about our intentions.
We agree that we should consider whether the commission should have a means of dealing with non-resident parents who intentionally deprive themselves of income in order to reduce their maintenance liability and those who have significant sources of income that are not currently taken into account in the main scheme. However, we must consider the appropriate place to take account of such complex financial circumstances. Taking account of deprivation of income, as new clause 15 would enforce, entails the commission deciding whether any observed reduction in income is intentional or reasonable, which would potentially cause significant delays in the processing of such cases.
As has been pointed out, the Secretary of State has the power to make those regulations and has done so for the 1993 scheme. However, these powers were not used for the 2000 scheme precisely to avoid such complex circumstances. We believe that that is the right approach. To introduce regulations to tackle the small number of non-resident parents who successfully deprive themselves of income into the new arrangements would add unnecessary complication and, therefore, cause additional delays in finalising maintenance calculations and ensuring the flow of money to children. If these powers were applied, we would risk creating considerable additional work for the commission by casting doubt on the income information supplied by all non-resident parents. Similarly, on amendment No. 83, it is vital that the definition of income in the new statutory maintenance scheme reflects operational realities. I know that hon. Members are well aware of the pitfalls in making maintenance calculations too complicated. Indeed, they may recall that the definition of income used for the first scheme was far too broad and caused the agency, children and parents significant problems, as evidence often proved difficult, if not impossible, to obtain, made little difference to the maintenance due and opened the system to abuse and delay by non-resident parents.