Clause 43
Welfare Reform Bill
11:00 am
Kitty Ussher (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Work and Pensions; Burnley, Labour)
I am delighted to be able to reassure the hon. Gentleman. We absolutely want to be able to define precisely the types of change of circumstance that people will be required to notify to the commission. If I give some history of the journey of the policy, it may help to explain why this is in the legislation.
During the passage of the 2008 Act, the Government rejected an Opposition amendment that would have made it a requirement for non-resident parents to inform us of any change to their circumstances that would affect their liability; the onus would be on them to decide whether a particular change would affect their liability. The amendment was rejected because we felt that it would create precisely the problems that the hon. Gentleman now says he wishes to avoid. Individuals might not know, or they might be so cautious that they would overburden the commission with lots of minutiae of changes that did not affect their liability.
Subsequently, we introduced an amendment to make it an offence for non-resident parents not to inform the commission of changes to their address. The reason for that is practical: it should be an offence if someone moves house and does not notify the commission, to avoid paying the liability that they owe to their children.
After some reflection, we would like now to explore with stakeholders whether there are other clearly defined circumstances under which we would like to make it an offence for people not to notify the commission of changes of circumstances. The primary power is not drafted widely so as to have a wide responsibility, as with the amendment we rejected last year. It is drafted widely to give us the opportunity tightly to define in regulations following consultation precisely what would be included in the power—I cannot be precise about what that will be because we want to consult to work that out. However, I am happy to reassure the hon. Gentleman that it will be simple to understand and designed not to overburden either the commission or the non-resident parent.
The type of avenues that we may wish to explore with anyone who has an interest are, perhaps, significant changes to employment, significant changes in earnings in either direction, a change of job, or losing one’s job and leaving the work force for a while. I do not want to say definitely that those will be the avenues because we want to explore the issue.
I am aware of the concerns that Families Need Fathers has rightly raised, I understand, in a conversation last week with the chief executive of CMEC. We will continue to work with it and other groups and we will not propose regulations until we are sure that we have a simple, workable way to ensure that children are more likely to receive what they are owed. I hope that reassures the hon. Gentleman.