Clause 49
Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill
12:00 pm
Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)
Clause 49 is extremely important and deals with how the money will be provided for the lump sum payments that the Department will pay out up front. If Committee members read clause 49 in full, they will see that lump sum payments that are paid out promptly—within six weeks, we hope, of diagnosis—are to be recovered from subsequent compensation payments made either by solvent employers or by insurers, should those employers choose to claim against their insurance policies or should the employer have become insolvent. It is an extremely important aspect of the Bill.
I shall refer briefly to remarks that the Minister made in an earlier debate. I think she said words along the lines of, “We do not have enough money to pay everyone.” I may have misquoted her slightly, but it was something similar.