Clause 39
Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill
10:45 am
Paul Rowen (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Rochdale, Liberal Democrat)
Amendments Nos. 51 and 52 refer to schedule 6, which deals with the use of information. I am sure that Members will recall our discussions in Committee when we considered several amendments dealing with the relationship between the commission and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. In particular, we addressed concerns about the systems in both the Inland Revenue and the commission, and about whether all the information from the different computer systems at the Inland Revenue would be readily available to the commission. The specific issue that was raised was that of the non-resident parent who might seek to maximise their tax position to minimise their payments to the parent with care.
What this small amendment—again, it is very much a probing amendment—is seeks to do is to elucidate from the Government what particular process is currently in place. As I have said, several computer systems are already operating within the Inland Revenue, and they do not necessarily talk to each other. There is also the issue of the free flow of information to the commission. Before the new system becomes operational, we want the Government to present a report to Parliament that sets out how the system will operate.
We know from the history the problems that have been experienced with IT systems. Will we be embarking on a whole new IT system? If we are not doing that, what steps will be put in place to ensure that the existing system copes?