New Clause 1
Welfare Reform Bill
12:00 pm
Mark Harper (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Forest of Dean, Conservative)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The purpose of the new clause, which we have discussed with Gingerbread, would enable child support appeal tribunals, when considering child support appeals, to consider all matters up to the date of the hearing. The present position under section 20(7)(b) is that a tribunal is not allowed to take into account any circumstances that did not exist at the time when the decision under appeal was made. That rule effectively came through from social security legislation.
The reason why child maintenance appeals are problematic is partly that it takes so long for cases to be determined by a tribunal after an appeal. The information supplied to me by Gingerbread—it was obtained from the Department for Work and Pensions; the Minister may or may not be able to confirm its accuracy—suggests that it takes about 33 weeks. On average, 11 weeks elapse between the submission of an appeal to the Child Support Agency and the passing of the papers to the Tribunals Service. Once the papers are received by the Tribunals Service, on average just under 22 weeks elapses. The problem, which can affect both the parent with care and the non-resident parent, is that circumstances often change before the appeal is heard.
To provide a specific example, after the decision has been made someone’s income or job circumstances could change and the appeal tribunal would then be making a decision based on a set of facts that no longer exists. That can take place over 33 weeks, which is the best part of a year. In respect of child maintenance it would be much better if the appeal tribunal could look at the present position and reach a decision about the level of child maintenance with some finality.
This is a relatively simple point and it is worth testing the Minister on whether the Government think that it has any merit in child maintenance cases. I am not suggesting that we adopt the process for social security benefit cases—effectively, that is where the idea stems from—but we should certainly do so for child maintenance cases. With the delay in the system, it makes sense for the appeal tribunal to be able to take into account all the relevant information up to the date of the appeal, so that it can make a better decision that is more likely to be final; otherwise, the process may need to be repeated because the information has changed. That streamlining measure would help both the parent with care and the non-resident parent get to some form of closure. Will the Minister think about this matter?