New Clause 17
Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill
4:45 pm
Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause is an attempt to get a little bit of equity between the court-based system and the operation of the commission on the amount of full and frank disclosure that is made between the parties. It is proposed for the commission that the parent with care will be deprived of the opportunity to check that the information given is correct or complete and therefore will not be able to evaluate whether the commission has made an appropriate decision by reference to the information provided. In that context, will the Minister tell the Committee what will be the position in relation to HMRC and its usual, quite proper rules of privacy regarding income? We touched on that area in earlier debates, but this is a useful opportunity to revisit it.
The new clause would help parents with care to take ownership of their cases and ensure that they are not kept in the dark in respect of any aspect of them. Then, armed with that information, they would be able to decide whether they wanted to apply for a variation. I hope that the Minister will look favourably on the new clause.