Mark Harper (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Forest of Dean, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment 83, in clause 43, page 49, leave out line 8.

The clause requires a person liable to make payments of child support maintenance to notify a change of address, or any other change of circumstances. The amendment leaves out the line that says

“any other change of circumstances”.

This is a probing amendment to ask the Minister to give the Committee more detail about the type of information that the Government envisage being used.

On the face of it, the clause is drafted incredibly widely: someone would be guilty of an offence for not notifying any other change of circumstances with no information as to what that might mean. Ministers clearly envisage some of that detail being contained in regulations, but I should like to set out for the Committee some of the areas of concern in order to inform the nature of the regulations and how tightly they are drafted.

Some of the information and some of the concerns have been raised by Families Need Fathers, which is keen to campaign in this area. It has spelt out the concerns about the lack of due specificity on the face of the Bill. It has also raised concerns, which I know the Government share as they set out in their document how they thought the regulations might be used, that, should those regulations not be defined tightly enough, it will generate a significant number of flows of information into the Child Maintenance Enforcement Commission. That would have the opposite effect to what the commission is seeking. The commission is trying to streamline its future case load by reducing the number of cases in which it carries out reviews of change of circumstances; for example, it is reducing the number of times it will look at a child maintenance award where the income varies by less than 25 per cent. It would seem that, unless this provision is narrowly drawn, it would generate the inflow of a huge amount of information to CMEC, which would offset the work it is doing to reduce its work load in order to focus more effectively on the cases that require the most attention.

I have not seen any evidence—perhaps the Minister could supply the Committee with some—about the kinds of information that should be supplied to CMEC under the clause, and how that would make the payment of child maintenance more effective and more likely to reach the family in which the child is resident, which is the purpose of the test.

I have looked at the document that the Ministers have published detailing how they plan to use regulation-making powers. They have said that the definition of “other change of circumstances” would be left to secondary legislation, which would allow the commission flexibility and time to consult stakeholders as part of its process for developing policy. That sounds sensible, but there is nothing in the Bill that constrains any of that—no guidance is provided.

On a positive note, to be fair to Ministers, paragraph 376 of that document does say that Ministers are

“mindful of not creating unnecessary offences”

and that they want regulations to be

“tightly and precisely termed to ensure there is a clear understanding of any requirement placed on parents.”

In fact, Ministers have acknowledged the concern that I and Families Need Fathers have outlined about the burden of information coming into the commission. They have said:

“Indeed, the changes of circumstances to be notified to the Commission must be narrow enough to enable the system to process the information without becoming over burdened.”

So I think Ministers recognise that the clause is widely drawn and that the regulations will need to be narrow and tightly focused so as to be fair to parents and so as not to burden the commission. It will help the Committee—as it has not seen the regulations— if the Minister will give some idea of the kinds of information that the Government and the commission have in mind. The Committee can then be reassured that Ministers will be committed to the objective of having tightly defined terms when they bring the regulations before the House.

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