Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jo Churchill]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I would ask people to go to their jobcentre, which can help them build their CV and their confidence. We have 50PLUS champions across all districts, and midlife MOTs. I for one think that working in my 50s—and now my 60s—is a very good idea indeed.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

The two wellbeing hubs in my constituency, in Brora and Dunbeath, are crucial to the wellbeing of pensioners. They signpost the best mix of benefits and are a last safety net, but their future is uncertain because of the vagaries of NHS Scotland finance. Will a Minister meet me to discuss how we can safeguard the future of these two centres?

Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I pay full credit to Mrs Ward and also to my hon. Friend. I read with interest the Stoke Sentinel report on this particular issue. There is a genuine change to be made, there has been a long-standing campaign, and all parties should be pleased with the outcome reached.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

In all honesty, I probably ought to declare an interest, but pensioners living in Edinburgh and Glasgow do not face the same sorts of increases as pensioners living in a remote and faraway constituency such as mine when it comes to living costs such as running a car, buying groceries and heating the house. Will the Government look at ways of targeting these particularly hard-hit people?

[Mel Stride]

We of course look at particularly targeting harder-hit pensioners through pension credit, and the Pensions Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), has done a huge amount to promote that. But we are always open to receiving further ideas and having discussions, and if the hon. Gentleman would like to come forward with further ideas, we will certainly look at them.

Child Maintenance Services

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered potential improvements to child maintenance services.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I am very grateful for being granted the time to shed light on the Child Maintenance Service, which I will refer to as the CMS, not least because I, along with the help of colleagues, set up a new all-party parliamentary group on this issue in October last year, and because the Government have published an important review this morning, which I will come to shortly. I want to put on the record my thanks to organisations such as Gingerbread, One Parent Families Scotland, Refuge, Women’s Aid and Surviving Economic Abuse, which have taken the time to educate the APPG on this issue. I also thank the brave constituents from all over the UK who have shared their experiences with us.

To put it plainly, I am afraid that the CMS is not working. It is failing receiving parents, paying parents and survivors of domestic abuse, but, most of all, it is failing children. Roughly 120,000 children in the UK receive no maintenance, and a high number receive a meagre portion of what they are entitled to. Since launching the APPG, we have received floods of correspondence from people who do not know which way to turn. I put it to you, Mr Twigg, that the CMS is broken, and we MPs cannot make it work on an individual case-by-case basis. I believe it is time for a complete overhaul of the service.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. He started by rightly pointing out the many cases that cross constituency MPs’ desks, and our caseworkers have to deal with very sensitive and difficult cases, the vast majority of which involve mothers. I have had a terrible case of a mother tirelessly pursuing her ex-husband to pay up for nine years, and he has found every which way to game the system. I have also heard from a father who has erroneously paid £18,000 of arrears, despite having evidence from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs that he was not earning money during the period for which he has been charged. Does that not show the complete incompetence of the CMS? It needs to be able to work with HMRC and communicate clearly with parents, but it also needs to have the teeth to take enforcement action where parents are not paying up.

[Jamie Stone]

My hon. Friend makes some very valid points indeed. Perhaps I should also pay tribute to the staff in my own office, and in the offices of all other MPs, who do fantastic, challenging and difficult work. It is very stressful for the staff members involved, so I pay tribute to them.

I want to focus on the ways in which the CMS can better support survivors of domestic abuse and safeguard receiving parents and their children from falling into poverty. It is quite clear that the CMS is not specialised or tailored to support survivors of domestic and economic abuse, so we in the APPG are glad to hear that the Government plan to use Dr Samantha Callan’s recommendations to introduce new domestic abuse training for CMS caseworkers, which will be delivered by a third-party external agency rather than in-house, as set out in the review published this morning, for which I thank His Majesty’s Government. However, our concern is that this does not go far enough. The training should be delivered by a specialist organisation, such as any of the organisations I have already thanked.

I am also glad to hear that the Government plan to protect survivors from having direct contact with abusive ex-partners when trying to obtain child maintenance payments, by giving them the choice to be moved on to collect and pay, the system by which the CMS collects a payment from the paying parent and pays it to the receiving parent without either party having to make direct contact, allowing claims to be made safely. That is an important point.

I understand that the system is more costly for the Government, but we strongly urge that these charges to the paying and receiving parents—20% and 4% respectively —are dropped for survivors of domestic abuse. The charges exacerbate already abusive relationships; they make them worse. Abolishing them would also be a simple way to safeguard against further refusal to make payments.

When it comes to safeguarding receiving parents from falling below the poverty line, I support the call for the CMS to make mandatory minimum payments to survivor receiving parents and to chase the paying parents themselves. This would take the burden of feeling forced to make direct contact away from the survivor and protect them from potential financial ruin. Given the historic failure of the CMS to enforce payments from perpetrators of economic abuse and the current cost of living crisis, we believe that the Government should seriously consider this recommendation.

Many of the problems come down to a fundamental breakdown of communication between the Department for Work and Pensions, and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Perpetrators of economic abuse are able to get away with declaring no income if they are self-employed or a business-owner, therefore escaping the obligation to pay maintenance; this will be a situation familiar to Members of this House from all parties. The perpetrators are also able to avoid payments as the CMS has no legal enforcement capability, despite child maintenance being a legal obligation.

The Public Accounts Committee found that unpaid maintenance owed to parents on collect and pay to distribute payments is set to rise to £1 billion by March 2031. Can you believe that? The review by the National Audit Office in March 2022 stated that the work of the CMS has

“not, so far, increased the number of effective child maintenance arrangements across society.”

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

This work on child maintenance is incredibly important. The Work and Pensions Committee has also been looking at these issues and I have found the Ministers and the teams at DWP to be very receptive. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that when we are considering how to get money to parents through an enforcement process, the speed of the implementation of enforcement is just as important as the actual tool, and that involving courts can sometimes seriously delay the enforcement? Also, would he be willing to look at my private Member’s Bill about child maintenance enforcement options, which has Government backing?

[Jamie Stone]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. I think I can safely speak for all members of the APPG in saying that we would endorse what has just been said and we would gladly look at her Bill. One of the most encouraging aspects of the work—early as it is—of this new APPG is the cross-party support that there is for it. Regardless of political colour, there is a recognition that there is something very wrong and I am sure that we can improve that.

I will re-emphasise my opening point that currently the CMS is not working for anybody. In my own office, the bulk of cases come from constituents who are paying parents and who are being unfairly treated by the CMS. We have found that it is often the case for parents who have shared care that one parent has the child for more days than the other and is entitled to various child benefits but then asks for maintenance on top of that, despite the other parent caring for the child for two to three days a week without receiving any support from the Government. So there are different ways of looking at this issue.

In my office, we have also seen cases where parents have been making their payments properly and on time, but they have had those payments treated as being “voluntary”, and so they are not counted towards assessed payments.

It is clear that we need a fundamental overhaul of the way that the CMS works, so that it better protects receiving parents from economic abuse and the threat of poverty, and so that paying parents are not being unnecessarily chased by the CMS for payments they do not owe. This would require a proper and thorough understanding of domestic and economic abuse, a fundamental link between the DWP and HMRC, and an urgent review of the internal administrative efficiency of the CMS.

In closing, I will simply say that I make these remarks in this place in all sincerity and I hope that we can move forward on a cross-party basis, with help from His Majesty’s Government, to tackle this issue, which cuts deeply into many people’s lives and for the worse.

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

May I just remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called to speak in this debate?

--- Later in debate ---

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I express my sincere thanks to the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for securing today’s debate and for setting up the child maintenance services APPG. Two of my constituents, Laura and Nicola, attended a meeting of the APPG this morning to share their experiences of the Child Maintenance Service, and that has done a great deal to make them feel that finally their voices are being heard.

Back in May, the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) led a debate here in Westminster Hall on this very topic, and in that debate I spoke about some of the long-running difficulties that my constituents had been having in getting the payments that they were owed by the paying parent in their cases. “Disappointing” is not a strong enough word for how it feels to be here seven months on, knowing that those constituents have yet to see any meaningful changes in their cases.

It is hard for me and my team when we see a new CMS case cross our desk. We know that constituents expect us to be able to do something to sort the problem out for them. We have the same expectations of ourselves. But we also know that there will be months of back and forth and most likely very little to show for it at the end. That is not because we—both Members and our staff—are not trying hard enough, and I am sure that it is not because the staff at the CMS do not have sympathy or want to help. It is because the system is not fit for purpose. Reforming it for the benefit of the service users must be an urgent priority for Ministers.

I know that some headway is being made. I welcome Dr Samantha Callan’s report today on the CMS response to domestic abuse, for example. I also welcome the response to that report from the new Minister on this matter, which reflects support for changes that many CMS users and their elected representatives have been calling for.

[Jamie Stone]

I am very glad that the hon. Member has made a point of drawing a line between the best efforts of the CMS staff, and the system. I want to place it on the record that my own office has no problem with the people on the other end of the email or the telephone. I do not want that to be misunderstood.

[Margaret Ferrier]

I thank the hon. Member for making that point; it is exactly what I was meaning. It is not incumbent on the CMS staff to sort out every single problem, but they need to be given the tools to be able to help us as parliamentarians and to help, ultimately, our constituents.

The report today by Dr Samantha Callan is a long report, and I admit that I have not yet had an opportunity to review it in full, but I am pleased that long-running issues are finally being reviewed and addressed. Dr Callan’s report rightly highlights the fact that the space in which the CMS operates is unusual and tricky and that, as she puts it,

“The CMS is a state agency that is tasked with intervening in an area of social life—parental separation—that is often highly emotionally charged, where people are not always able to act rationally, and where contact with both parties is required in order to get money flowing for the benefit of children.”

She also highlights the fact that the CMS’s remit is to administer the scheme, but it does not have a statutory safeguarding responsibility or duty of care.

One of the key recommendations that Dr Callan’s report has made, and Ministers have accepted, alongside others, is to allow receiving parents who are survivors of domestic abuse to access the collect and pay service without the consent of the paying parent. The reasons behind that are clear and it is welcome that they are being recognised through changes to the system.

I have heard deeply upsetting stories of paying parents using the direct pay system—where they pay maintenance into the receiving parent’s bank account—to continue to control and abuse their ex-partner. There are stories of payments being split into small chunks, with abusive messages left in the payment reference box as a means to continue the abuse. It is correct that that has changed, but I think that the change could and should be applied more broadly. Where paying parents refuse to keep up with payments via direct pay, receiving parents should be able to request use of the collect and pay method and to feel reassurance that their request will be granted.

In fact, that was the request my constituent Nicola made to the CMS, which refused. She is no longer in contact with the paying parent, but she has been told on various occasions that she would need to go away and gather information on his earnings or her daughter’s entitlement. She is not the only one of my constituents to be told that. She says she is made to feel like a neurotic, money-grabbing woman every time she complains about the system.

Another constituent, Laura, has explained that her mental wellbeing and self-esteem have taken a real knock from the ongoing back and forth with the service. Imagine someone being made to feel in the wrong for fighting for the money they are entitled to in order to meet the basic costs of raising a child. As it stands, it is far too easy for paying parents to avoid payments, under-declare their income and hide income streams. That is a key aspect of almost every case involving CMS that comes to my team.

Constituents report that they are even advised by the CMS to subsidise their income—essentially to claim benefits—if the paying parent does not keep up with their financial obligations. That entirely defeats the original intention behind the reform of the Child Support Agency into the Child Maintenance Service that we have today, which was to remove the state’s financial burden and its involvement in child support arrangements as far as possible.

If Government Departments and agencies addressed the issues head on and communicated with each other, a lot of the pressure caused by this avoidance by paying parents could be quickly eased. We know—this point is crucial—that communication between the child welfare scheme, DWP and HMRC is frankly not good enough. We also know that there are reasons for that, such as the regulations around information sharing and how intelligence is acted on. But what I do not understand is why the Government have not brought forward measures to fix things much sooner.

Women and children are victimised again and again by this outdated, underperforming system. I understand that both men and women can be, and are, victims of domestic violence and economic abuse., and we heard about that this morning at the APPG. That said, the gender aspect of this problem cannot be ignored, and it stems from historic and deeply held misogyny in society’s subconscious.

We have children literally ageing out of the system, without seeing a fraction of the money they are entitled to to enable them to have a normal, comfortable childhood. It is clear that the current system does not work, if it ever has. My constituents and their children need more. They need a commitment from Ministers that the Government will really get into the detail of the failings of the CMS. They need a commitment from Ministers that they will be offered the right support and that the communication between Departments will be addressed and improved. They need a commitment that this will be done urgently. I hope the Minister is in a position to provide those commitments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) on securing the debate, and I thank him for chairing the APPG on child maintenance services this morning. As the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) alluded to, I have done this before. In fact, I have lost track of the number of times I have taken part in or led debates on the Child Maintenance Service. It is quite difficult to stand here and recall that nothing appears to have changed in the seven and a half years I have been pursuing this important topic. I will try to remain calm and measured and not get upset, as I sometimes do when thinking of the cases that have gone through my constituency office.

I want to make it clear that I am not here raging against paying parents alone. I am not here raging against receiving parents alone. I am here, as I have always been in these debates, to help the children involved. It is important that we all remember that, at the end of these esoteric debates, with everything we talk about, there are children who—through no fault of their own—are being pushed into poverty and who are part of the emotional abuse that sometimes takes place when parents separate.

I will do the formal bit—the bit with figures. DWP figures show that since 2012, when the CMS began, £512.6 million in unpaid maintenance has accumulated. That does not take into account the maintenance arrears that the CSA accrued over time. The CMS was supposed to be an improvement on the CSA system, but I cannot see—nor have I ever been able to see—that that is the case. The SNP—in the whole—and I have repeatedly called for effective enforcement action to be taken in the collection of maintenance arrears. Gingerbread ran a huge campaign on the issue as well. Some children go right through the system without getting what they should and then pass out of the system. They have been brought up in poverty as a result of parents not paying what they should.

There need to be much stronger systems and more resource dedicated to tackling parents who attempt to avoid or minimise child support payments and who do not pay what has been agreed. The withholding or restricting of child maintenance payments can be used as a tool for economic abuse. According to DWP data, in the quarter ending September 2022, 53% of new applicants on CMS were recognised as survivors of domestic abuse. It is not just physical abuse we are talking about here, but economic abuse. The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West talked about the nasty remarks made on bank statements as part of the reference for money paid by paying parents. I want to thank the person who came to speak to the APPG this morning about the economic abuse side of this issue. You will forgive me, Mr Twigg—I have covered this table in papers and I cannot find the name I am looking for—but we heard from a member of Surviving Economic Abuse, which has been working on this issue for a number of years.

Some paying parents continue the economic abuse of their previous partners to the detriment of their children. It is utterly shameful. Little is done when a paying parent pays a token amount; it seems to halt processes at CMS, meaning that those children do not get what they are entitled to and—especially nowadays, in a cost of living crisis—what they absolutely need to keep themselves out of poverty. Children in poverty do not thrive and, at the end of the day, are not able to contribute to society in the way that they might otherwise have done.

[Jamie Stone]

The hon. Lady is speaking with extraordinary power on this issue. Does she agree that even if a child is fortunate enough to get through this, it can still leave a mark on them for the rest of their lives?

[Marion Fellows]

I have papers in front of me from a case in my constituency. The parents have separated, and the father was going through court to try to get residency for his daughter. His daughter has now left school, and his ex-partner is still claiming child benefit, which is an abuse of the social security system. His daughter has now left home, is impoverished and has no contact with her father. He sees this as a failure of the state to help bring up his daughter properly. He has been paying, but he has now tried to walk away from the court case because he cannot afford to continue. It also would have meant that his ex-partner ended up in prison. It is a terrible case. I did say I would not get involved and get too emotional, but it is difficult to listen to what happens to children because of failures in the CMS.

A Joseph Rowntree Foundation report from 2020 found that nearly half of children in lone-parent families are in poverty. This has to stop. Satwat Rehman, the chief executive of One Parent Families Scotland, said:

“parents are facing huge delays in hearing back, poor customer service, and ultimately a failure to collect payments”

at

“a time when the cost of living is rising to impossible levels”.

Victoria Benson, chief executive of Gingerbread, said:

“Child maintenance is not a ‘nice to have’ luxury, in many cases it makes the difference between a family keeping their heads above water or plunging into poverty.”

Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts said:

“Providing for your children is a fundamental responsibility, and it’s genuinely surprising that the Child Maintenance Service allows so many adults to evade it. Children from these families deserve better than to be treated as collateral damage when relationships break down.”

The Scottish Government do all they can to mitigate child poverty. The child payment fund in Scotland, which has been quadrupled recently, is a good start, but it is still not enough. The real issue is that the CMS isnae working. That is it in a nutshell. Parents spend hours on the phone—either the paying parent or the parent with care—and they do not get the same person on every call. They get conflicting advice, they end up in tears and they end up wasting their entire weekend with worry, as Members have said. It is not good enough.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) on bringing this important debate before us. I welcome his efforts on the new Child Maintenance Service all-party parliamentary group, and I welcome the contributions from all Members from across the House today. The hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) spoke about the difference it makes to youngsters’ lives when parents work together to support them. Hon. Members know that, and I appreciate their passion and interest in the Child Maintenance Service.

The CMS plays an important role in ensuring that children are best supported financially when their parents do not live together and are unable to come to private financial arrangements to support them. Our aim with the CMS is to help parents provide vital support for their children, and we are sensitive to the needs of both parties. It is designed to promote collaboration between parents where possible, but it offers a statutory scheme if that is not possible. We must all reiterate that child maintenance is so effective at lifting youngsters out of poverty and enhancing the life chances of children from separated families. I will come on to that later.

As mentioned, until recently the day-to-day policy responsibility for child maintenance sat with Baroness Stedman-Scott. She was incredibly passionate and strident in her desire for the CMS to be at its best. I witnessed that first hand, and I am sure that view is shared by Viscount Younger of Leckie, who has now taken over ministerial responsibility for the CMS. However, I reassure Members that my day-to-day work in DWP is supporting the most disadvantaged people, who have the most challenges: single parents, people leaving care and refugees—you name it. My job is to support people who need help, and supporting single parents, separated families, women and people leaving domestic abuse is an absolute priority. I hope that reassures Members that I will be working strongly with the new Minister, and I will outline some of that in my comments today.

I have a lot of points to address on how the CMS will improve its service to separated parents, and I will do my best to cover as many as I can. Many Members will have heard this topic being raised by constituents or in this House; it attracts great interest, as we have heard. I, too, am a constituency MP, and we have much better engagement and far fewer challenges in my area than in the past, but they are incredibly concerning. I appreciate all the MP caseworkers, charities and organisations who assist our constituents.

Family breakdown and partnership breakdown are extremely hard. As a single parent myself, I know how deeply emotional and different all those situations are. We would all want a magic wand in our constituency surgeries to help people going through such difficulties. I reassure the House that we are offering child maintenance support sessions with MPs’ offices in March to help with those constituency casework opportunities, so I am keen to hear from Members about particular areas they would like to cover. I hope that is of note.

I agree with the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) about the challenge of how to best support separated families, and with regard to the poverty challenges if we do not get this right. She is completely right. Through family-based arrangements and the CMS, it is estimated that receiving parents got £2.4 billion annually in child maintenance payments between 2019 and 2021. As a result, 140,000 children were lifted out of poverty. The hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) mentioned that people are being held back from progressing and that the CMS is not working, and I would be very keen to see the constituency cases that he has raised.

I want to take the opportunity to reflect on the review. It was announced today, so this debate is incredibly timely and I thank the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross for securing it. I am grateful for the excellent independent review of the CMS conducted by Dr Samantha Callan, who I met yesterday, and for the Government response to the review, which will be in Members’ inboxes this afternoon. The review was announced this morning, with an update. For those who are not aware, the Government response was released today and circulated to all Members of Parliament this afternoon. The report is really important and recognises that the CMS has worked very hard to improve the service and experience for those who are survivors of abuse, and remains motivated to take the practical step change to support parents to set up safe arrangements.

In meeting Dr Callan yesterday, I also met and engaged with Lorna McNamara, who has campaigned for changes after the loss of her sister, Emma Day. She has taken part in the review and has been engaged during the process. Yesterday, ahead of the announcement, I engaged with Refuge, Gingerbread, Families Need Fathers, ManKind, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, the chief executive officer of the Surviving Economic Abuse charity—who, as we heard in the debate, was giving further evidence today—my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) in order to go through each and every recommendation and explain the Government’s thinking on this issue.

On recommendation 6, which the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) mentioned, it is that vital cross-Government work that will make the difference. Whether by working with separated parents groups or family hubs, we will absolutely ensure that, where we can pre-empt conflict and take the sting out of things, we do that across Government. That is a firm commitment.

The hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) mentioned recommendation 10 and said she was trying hard not to be a cynic. I will help her out with that. On the working group and the implementation plan, we had conversations yesterday with stakeholders, which I need to discuss with my noble Friend in the other place. He has had other duties in his House, so we need to come together following the engagement yesterday to discuss timelines and the working group. It is important that we discuss how people feel engaged. We are still looking at that and listening to feedback.

[Jamie Stone]

I may have missed something here. Can I assume that the Minister and the Minister in the other place either have or will meet the organisations I mentioned?

[Mims Davies]

Yes. To be clear, yesterday afternoon we went through the review step by step and took on board some of the feedback. On recommendation 10, there is some feedback with regard to timelines and implementation that I need to take to my noble Friend to try to unpick some of the questions that were raised yesterday and have been raised during this debate. On the review and the taskforce, we are aware of what has been reported today. I am keen to look at that because, again, it has been picked up today. I hope that clarifies things for the hon. Gentleman. [Interruption.] Yes and no, then.

As I say, in the Government’s response we were keen to ensure progress, to ensure that parliamentary scrutiny and engagement with stakeholders occurred, and absolutely to look to what the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw mentioned. I hope that we will find, in essence, a middle way. I cannot speak too roundly for my noble Friend, but I am very keen to engage on this matter.

On the wider recommendations, I am engaging in this place on the question of amending the legislation to prevent direct pay from being used as a form of coercion and control. The removal of the requirement to report domestic abuse to qualify for the application fee waiver has been accepted. On piloting the use of dedicated caseworkers for complex domestic abuse cases, that is absolutely something that we will bring forward. In addition, the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross asked about reviewing the calculation formula to ensure affordability for low-income paying parents and including a broader range of agencies in CMS training, as did many of the charities and organisations I spoke with, and Dr Callan recommended that too.

Crucial work is being done both in the review and through the two private Members’ Bills mentioned by the hon. Member for Westminster North. The Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye, which is supported by the Government, will help to ensure that anyone using the service who has suffered any form of domestic abuse can feel safe and be reassured that their case will be handled sensitively and efficiently.

I would like to outline some improvements we have made in the CMS area, but I want first to cover a few other points that have been made. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross mentioned training. The CMS reviewed its domestic abuse training in 2021, with input from Women’s Aid, but it has been challenged about whether that is enough to ensure that our caseworkers are fully equipped to support parents in these multiple and challenging vulnerable situations. Some aspects of the training teach caseworkers how to recognise the various forms of domestic abuse, as well about checking on previous reports of abuse and providing appropriate signposting to domestic abuse support groups.

Following the independent review of the ways in which the CMS supports survivors of domestic abuse, the CMS will review the training to ensure that it is up to date and fully in line with best practice. The CMS also uses a complex needs toolkit for its caseworkers, which includes clear steps to follow to support customers who are experiencing abuse. The CMS will continue to review and evaluate the effectiveness of the guidance and training with regard to domestic abuse.

Issues around enforcement have been raised in the debate—certainly by the hon. Member for Weaver Vale, who mentioned deductions from earnings. Deductions from earnings orders have proved efficient and effective as a tool for collecting child maintenance. In the quarter ending September 2022, almost half of child maintenance —£29 million—was collected from paying parents who had a deduction from earnings order in place at the end of the quarter. We are working closely with employers to ensure that they understand their legal obligations and to help them to collect and pass on payments to the CMS much more quickly.

On minimum payments, operating a scheme in which the Government guarantee child maintenance payments is not the intent of CMS policy. The role of the CMS is to encourage parents to take financial responsibility for their children. However, as I say, we are often in a very challenged place when managing this issue. In the UK, CMS payments do not have any impact on the money received from other benefits, which has a positive impact on child poverty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jamie Stone]

It is clear to all of us that the Minister has gone into this in some detail and has been thorough in her approach. I am sure we are all grateful for that. I happen to know her noble Friend in the other place because we were at university together many years ago, and I know him to be a man of good faith. I thank the hon. Members who have contributed so very well and made the points that needed to be made with some passion, which shows how important the subject is. None of us underestimates the task that we have to carry out or the problem that we have to solve, but I believe the good will is there. If we can work together, we can do something that will be good for young people caught in this terrible trap.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered potential improvements to child maintenance services.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)]

The hon. Gentleman is a member of the Labour party. He will recall that it was the Labour party that set up the Pensions Regulator with operational independence to deal with these matters. He may have forgotten the basis on which the Pensions Regulator was set up, but I have not. It is a matter between the Pensions Regulator and the individual company, but I am sure that he will take that up when he meets the Pensions Regulator.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

This is in no way a criticism of the very hard-working DWP staff in the north of Scotland, but, prior to covid, as the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) has pointed out, one-time face-to-face meetings did work. However, since covid, we have had virtual meetings, often followed by another virtual meeting and yet another virtual meeting, or even a face-to face, which has led to huge delays, and, if that is followed by an appeal, this is really unacceptable. Will the Secretary of State look at two things: first, will she ensure that we go back to timely face-to-face meetings; and, secondly, if there is a geographic element to this, because I represent such a huge constituency, could that be looked into as well with a view to sorting it out?

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point about the rural elements. That is taken into account in the prioritisation of people we may wish to see in face-to-face interventions. We treat every claimant as an individual in trying to help them at this stage, and none more so than in his part of Scotland.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend is right to praise hard-working DWP staff at her local Jobcentre Plus and across the network. The team in Barnstaple have worked with the National Careers Service to help with interview technique and build transferable skills among people who become unemployed, and great work is already under way at the North Devon youth support hub in Bideford and Barnstaple. I look forward to visiting the south-west. As she knows, the DWP jobcentre is a covid-secure environment and I look forward to joining her there in due course.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD) [V]]

I, too, am greatly concerned about the ability of the Child Maintenance Service to deliver results. I wonder whether the Minister would be kind enough to meet me to discuss a constituent who has been unable to collect an unbelievable amount of arrears over the past decade, estimated at £30,000.

[Dr Coffey]

My noble Friend Baroness Stedman-Scott is the Minister responsible for the Child Maintenance Service. She is more than happy to meet colleagues who are having particular difficulties with paying parents who are refusing to cough up.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank my right hon. Friend for what he says, and it is absolutely clear to someone who visits a jobcentre anywhere in the country: for the first time, work coaches feel empowered to offer personalised, tailored support, working with external agencies to provide as much opportunity as possible. We must remember that under the legacy benefits £2.4 billion per year went unclaimed because the system was too complex for some of the most vulnerable people in society. That was not acceptable.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Some 45% of disabled claimants in my constituency have, as was mentioned in a previous question, lost out when they have moved from DLA to PIP. I ask the Government: has a target been given to assessment centres to take money off the disabled?