Clause 40
Welfare Reform Bill
10:30 am
Kitty Ussher (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Work and Pensions; Burnley, Labour)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Hood.
I am grateful for the amendment as it gives me an opportunity to provide a little more detail about how a disqualification order would work in practice. I was relieved to hear that this is a probing amendment. I would have been slightly worried by the possibility that this subsection could be deleted because that would have meant that we could take away people’s passports or driving licences without notifying them that that was our intention. I am therefore grateful for the opportunity to explain how it would work.
The legislation is crystal clear: the order cannot take effect until the person receives notice of the order. The legislation does not specify exactly how this should happen, but I am happy to confirm that, in practice, this will be by registered post or by hand delivery. There is a right of appeal, and the legislation makes it clear that, where there are reasonable grounds to do so, the appeal rights can be extended in time and even renewed. We think that is sufficient .
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the possibility that communications from the Child Support Agency might be routinely ignored by precisely the people whose attention we are trying to attract. I am afraid that argument does not wash too well with me. He is right to say that international evidence on the effectiveness of both these measures is quite clear. I was particularly taken by the Australian example, which shows that, strangely enough, when the holiday season comes around there is an increase in the maintenance paid by people who wish to use their passport. That is exactly the kind of thing we will be looking at.
The hon. Gentleman has also rightly said that there is a two-year trial period for driving licences. The international evidence—particularly from various states in America—showed that the threat of being disqualified from driving does seem to have precisely the type of behavioural effect we would want on people who have been routinely ignoring Child Support Agency communications. Since disqualifying someone from driving has more complicated effects than removing a travel document, we felt it was right to have a trial period. We will be looking at all the evidence, including the effects on the courts and the criminal justice system. I hope that is sufficient detail to enable the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.