Child Support (Enforcement) Bill

Aaron Bell Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 17th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) and to listen to my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher) expertly introduce the Bill on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie), who cannot be here today. I know how passionate she is about families because of her time in legal practice as a family law solicitor; how expert she is on such matters; and why she was a great choice to bring the Bill to the House.

Before I turn to the Bill, I want to put on record, because I did not have the chance to speak in the debate, my happiness and delight that the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill passed its Third Reading an hour or so ago.

I commend my hon. Friend for her work on childcare, which she has consistently championed in this place, to some considerable effect as we saw in Wednesday’s Budget. I know that the changes that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer made will make a real difference to my constituents, to the constituents of all hon. Members, to new families across the country and, particularly, to mothers who want the choice of being able to go back to work and to be supported by the state as they do so.

This is a short Bill, but no less effective for that—in the best tradition of private Members’ Bills on Fridays. From reading my inbox and hearing about some of the cases that my staff work hard on, I know how important the good functioning of the Child Maintenance Service is to many families. When things go wrong, the consequences for the receiving parent and, perhaps more crucially, the children can be profound.

It is frustrating to see people refuse to honour their responsibilities. As my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington said, it takes two to make a baby, it takes two to raise a child and it takes two to pay for a child as well. While I understand that some parents struggle to afford to pay in difficult situations and when there is a change of circumstance—and I will always support constituents, whichever side of the argument they are on, in trying to make that case to the CMS—it is obvious that in some cases parents are deliberately and willingly choosing not to pay what they owe, not financially supporting their children and leaving the other parent, usually the mother, high and dry.

The difference that those payments make to children’s lives is critical. The Nuffield Foundation, a social mobility charity, estimates that as many as one in five single parents on benefits is lifted out of poverty by receiving those child maintenance payments, which means a better future for their children. Parents who receive that money, and in many cases rely on it, should be able to trust the system to move as swiftly as possible to help them recover maintenance arrears when that becomes necessary.

I pay tribute to the CMS’s work and the action it takes to tackle payment breakdowns at the earliest opportunity, to re-establish compliance and to collect unpaid amounts that have accrued. When that is not achieved and the parent is employed, the CMS attempts to deduct the maintenance, including arrears where appropriate, directly from their earnings. As we all know, employers are obliged by law to co-operate with such action, but unfortunately that does not mean it always happens.

Turning to the wording in clause 2, sometimes there are cases where that does not work, either because

“(i) it is inappropriate to make a deduction from earnings order against the person (because, for example, the person is not employed), or

(ii) although a deduction from earnings order has been made against the person, it has proved ineffective as a means of securing that payments are made in accordance with the maintenance calculation in question”.

That happens worryingly often, and that is what my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud is trying to address through this Bill. Under the current legislation, the CMS must apply to the magistrates or the sheriff court to obtain a liability order before the use of other enforcement powers, such as instructing enforcement agents or sheriff officers, or even more stringent court-based enforcement actions such as forcing the sale of a property, disqualification from driving or holding a UK passport, or even, in extreme cases, commitment to prison.

This Bill will amend the uncommenced primary legislation to enable the DWP to take further enforcement action without the need to apply to magistrates or sheriff courts. Instead, it allows the Secretary of State to make an administrative liability order. That will allow enforcement measures to be used more quickly against those parents who have failed to meet their obligations and will reduce the pressure on our courts, since I understand that liability orders at the moment take approximately 20 weeks. The simplification of the system will make it more efficient and get that money more quickly back into the pockets of the people who need it.

This Bill is of great importance in ensuring that the CMS can make the necessary improvements to enforcement processes and get the money to the parent and thus to the children more quickly. We must ensure that parents who are messing about, choosing to avoid their responsibility to their children, know that there will be sanctions against them and that the action taken against them will be swift—thereby not only putting that case right, but providing a deterrent to others who might be tempted to do likewise.

In conclusion, the most important thing is that any changes we make in this area should always have the children at their heart and should benefit the children in what can often be difficult and emotionally charged situations. It is important we have them at the forefront of our minds whenever we do anything in this area. This Bill will enable us to get the legal and the money issues out of the way so that we can focus on the welfare of the children.