New Clause 19
Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill
4:45 pm
Paul Rowen (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Rochdale, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
New clause 19 has two parts: proposed new subsection (a) would give the parent with care the right to make representations, orally or in writing, to a court or appeal tribunal, if enforcement action is planned; proposed new subsection (b) would give the parent with care the right to apply to a magistrates court or appeal tribunal in order to make their own enforcement actions.
It is ironic that if the commission or CSA were to initiate an enforcement action, the person directly affected—the parent with care—who might have important information about the financial position or assets of the non-resident parent cannot make any direct representations to the court or tribunal. That seems to go against any sense of natural justice, given that they will be directly affected by the enforcement action. Any decision taken in the court or tribunal will have a major impact on the income that they receive.
During previous discussions, we talked about the small number of non-resident parents who have hidden assets. However, the assets of most other non-resident parents will be more visible, but not necessarily of a type that is reported to the commission for the purposes of maintenance. We should not exclude the parent with care from making representations. I am not saying that they should make the determination, but given that they and the child in their care will be directly affected by the decision of a court or tribunal, they should be allowed to make representations.
Proposed new subsection (b) would provide for what the R (Kehoe) v. Secretary of State for Work and Pensions judgment specifically excluded. At the moment, a parent with care has no right to recover child care maintenance direct from the non-resident parent. That right was removed by the Child Support Act 1991. I accept that in the vast majority of cases a parent with care would not want to initiate their own action, but I am sure that there are examples of parents with care feeling aggrieved with the CSA, as it is currently operated, for making an enforcement action that did not take account of everything. The second part of the new clause would give them the right to initiate their own action, which we think is a fundamental right.
Proposed new subsection (a) would allow them to make representations, and proposed new subsection (b) would allow them to take action, if they felt that that taken by the commission was not appropriate. If exercised, those rights would be important to the parent with care. They might well not be used often; I suspect that the first right would be used a lot more often than the second. Nevertheless, given that they are directly affected by enforcement decisions, they should be able to make representations. I hope that the Minister will carefully examine that matter and see what we are trying to achieve.