Schedule 7
Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill
12:30 pm
Paul Rowen (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Rochdale, Liberal Democrat)
I want to refer in particular to the provisions dealing with the Child Support Act 1991. The purpose of the amendments to parts 1 and 2 of that Act is to ensure that it refers not only to written maintenance agreements but to a
“a registered minute of agreement”.
The amendments apply to the systems in England and Wales and in Scotland. A maintenance agreement may have gone before the courts, where an agreement may have been reached. By seeking to insert the words:
“a registered minute of agreement”,
we want to ensure that any decision made by the courts and then recorded in a minute of agreement is accepted as part of the arrangement for child maintenance.
I hope that the Minister will agree to the amendment. I will press it to a vote because I think that it is important for us to recognise and accept that the courts have a role. Where a decision is made in the courts and registered as a minute of agreement, it must have legal standing and take precedence over any of the commission’s other arrangements.