New Clause 22
Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill
5:00 pm
James Plaskitt (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Work and Pensions; Warwick and Leamington, Labour)
I thank the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire for tabling the new clause, which provides me with the opportunity to allay concerns—I hope—regarding the future enforcement of child maintenance. It sets out circumstances, as he has described, where the parent with care could enforce a child maintenance debt.
I remind the hon. Gentleman that the provisions in the Bill will support parents with care in choosing how to pursue child maintenance initially. We are establishing the information support service, revoking section 6 of the Child Support Act 1991, to give parents with care the chance to take greater control over their maintenance arrangements. Where a parent with care chooses the commission to calculate and collect child maintenance, the new powers provided in clauses 19 to 28 will supplement the existing powers to ensure a faster and more wide-reaching enforcement process.
The commission will have a range of options available to enable it to enforce the maintenance payments, including the deduction of earnings order, the current account deduction order and/or the lump sum deduction order, all of which will only be operable by the commission. Similarly, only the commission will be able to make an administrative liability order, which will allow for the use of bailiffs and, in England and Wales, applications to the county court for third-party debt orders and charging orders that can lead to forced sale of property. Where the non-resident parent is wilfully refusing or culpably neglecting to pay maintenance, the commission can force the surrender of passports or apply to the courts for disqualification from driving, for a curfew order or even for committal to prison.
In view of the extensive range of provisions available to the commission, I urge the hon. Gentleman to consider the circumstances under which the parent with care, on pursuing maintenance in the magistrates courts after one year of enforcement action by the commission, would be any more likely to have success.
I understand the sentiment behind the new clause. Since its inception in 1993, the Child Support Agency has, in too many cases, been slow or has failed to enforce maintenance as assessed. However, allowing the parent with care effectively to take over enforcement action from the commission where it has not collected all moneys due could act as a disincentive to the commission to pursue its more difficult cases. I ask the Committee to consider the wider-reaching impacts of the new clause. It could risk complication and duplication in the courts, without any significant benefit to the children, and it could be inequitable in cases where the non-resident parent owes maintenance to more than one parent with care and/or the Secretary of State. In view of that, I urge the hon. Gentleman not to press the new clause to a Division.