Child Maintenance Service

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Charles. I thank all colleagues who have contributed, in particular the Chair of the Select Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), for bringing forward the debate. As we heard from all the serious questions asked, it is important.

The Minister has quite a number of important questions to answer, so I will try to be swift. It is clear from this debate that on both sides of the House we all want parents to meet their responsibilities and pay what their child needs—no ifs, no buts; just get it done. We know from Gingerbread, which was mentioned by many hon. Members, that 60% of children of single parents not benefiting from child maintenance could be lifted out of poverty if that support were paid in full. That is why we want to get it sorted. The current situation is just not acceptable, which is why it was good—if a little tardy—that recently we the Government finally removed the fee for the service, after many people had warned for a number of years that it would remove its effectiveness.

Listening to colleagues, it strikes me that it would be helpful if the Government could provide a timeline or working update to help colleagues to know which improvements to CMS they are making and the status of those improvements. There are areas where the Government could do that and help us: on issues relating to domestic abuse, to customer service—I think particularly of the contribution made by the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) about the complexity of calculations; it cannot be beyond us to have clarity and be able to inform citizens of the information that the Government have on their behalf—and to enforcement. Members have made it absolutely clear how long we have been trying to get enforcement improved, and having a working update from the Government on where we are with that would really help colleagues. I want the Minister to consider that.

When the Minister and I last met across Dispatch Boxes, I had some questions about research undertaken by the Government. The Minister was kind enough to write to me on 21 February to say that Ipsos is commissioned currently to research direct pay customers. That is really helpful, because we really need to understand what is going on for parents. Can he say more about when that will be published? That would be really useful.

In the letter to me, the Minister also mentioned a particular tool that the DWP has developed, which I think gives us some hope in this area. Members have rightly expressed frustration and distress from listening to cases involving people who have had to deal with having a calculation that they knew was wrong. I am thinking of the person that the Chair of the Select Committee mentioned at the beginning of his speech—the dad who had lost a son. These are really heartbreaking cases.

However, I think that there is some hope in the letter that the Minister sent to me where he mentioned the “Get help arranging child maintenance” tool that had been developed for unbiased advice and support and designed to be convenient for parents and to support people into the most suitable arrangements for their circumstances. I would like to ask the Minister what lessons the DWP has drawn from the development of that tool. From listening to the contributions of colleagues, it strikes me that if we could have a focus also on early advice, help and support so that people knew, at the very distressing time of relationship breakdown, what the best steps were for them, that would be hopeful and point to a better direction, so I would be grateful if the Minister could say what lessons the DWP is drawing from the development of the tool.

Sir Charles, I said that I was going to be swift and I will be. I will sum up by making three brief points that I think we can all agree with.

[Dr Mullan]

There could be a change of Government by the end of the year. I welcome the warm words, and the hon. Member may go on to describe specific policy pledges, but I would like to hear specific policy goals that her party has in mind. For example, do you support the introduction of home curfews? Rather than just speaking warm words, what will you actually do differently should you end up in government?

[Dr Mullan]

My apologies, Sir Charles.

[Alison McGovern]

Thank you, Sir Charles, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I will just say to him that not a single vote in an election has been cast yet.

[Dr Mullan]

I said “could”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison McGovern]

The hon. Gentleman may have said “could”, but I am not the Minister and I would not be so arrogant as to assume that that will be certain to happen. My aim was to leave space for questions to be directed to the Minister, to assist colleagues. I simply say this to the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan): I could point to the record over the past 14 years and the number of occasions when Labour spokespeople have called for the removal of the fee and stronger enforcement. Some of that, including on the issue of the fee, the Government have now done, which is good. However, as I have been saying, we all know that a range of improvements need to be made. I think that we would all find it helpful if the Government could undertake to regularly update us—through the Select Committee, if necessary—on what is happening.

As I was saying, and as we all know, the children’s needs must come first. Members have described the pain that parents experience in this system, which affects children very deeply. That is why this issue really matters to us all.

The second point that I think is uncontroversial is that the service also has to react to some complex realities of life, and one of those realities is the power dynamic in a relationship. Anyone can find themselves a victim of domestic abuse, but unfortunately, domestic abuse tends to work along the lines of the imbalance in power between men and women in our country. That then leads us to a heightened concern about how domestic abuse is handled within the system, and I hope that the service will hear that concern.

I want to end on a hopeful note, because although there has been deep dissatisfaction, I felt that in the Minister’s letter to me there were some signs that the civil service is working hard to improve the quality of the service for all parents. If we can do that early, we can avoid some of the deeply distressing situations that Members have described today.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Thank you, shadow Minister. Minister, will you just leave a couple of minutes at the end for the mover of the motion?

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Maynard]

I have made a lot of comments today about the drumbeat of ongoing changes and how we implement some of the private Members’ Bills that have gone through, for example. I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says about the progress and the drumbeat, but I am not sufficiently close to the actual data and the information that he seeks. I will ensure that he is written to, along with other Members present today. I am sure that will be discussed when he meets Viscount Younger.

[Alison McGovern]

While I am pleased to have cheered the Minister up, I can assure him that I will certainly be giving the Government down the banks yet again. But that exact point is why I thought it would be helpful if we could have some sort of regular update out of this debate. Can the Minister feed that back to the Secretary of State, if necessary? I am sure it can be discussed whether that is a statement that the Government place in the Library or a regular update to the Select Committee, but for those reasons, Members need to know what is happening with the different streams of improvement to the service.

[Paul Maynard]

I have already heard that point, and in my preparation for the debate, I noted the complexity and the number of workstreams going on in this area. I will certainly take that point back to the Department. Another theme that we have heard today is the importance of not just having an enforcement process but having an efficient and effective one. That is done partly by deciding what actions are appropriate on a case-by-case basis and using the existing powers that have the greatest chance of ensuring that parents meet their obligations to pay for their children.

The CMS has made a number of improvements to processes, for example by making better use of deduction from earnings orders so that they can be set up faster. The CMS has also brought forward the point at which deductions from bank accounts are made, which not only has increased the volume of deductions from bank accounts but means getting money to children faster. Working alongside His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service, the Child Maintenance Service has improved court processing times by introducing virtual court presenting and the electronic exchange of documentation.

Following the Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023, the Government propose to bring into force a legislative change to accelerate the enforcement process. The change will introduce a simpler administrative process to obtain a liability order against those paying parents who actively avoid their responsibilities. That will enable the CMS to take faster enforcement action, affecting at least 10,000 cases a year. They will also publish a consultation shortly on how the Child Maintenance Service collects and transfers payments to support survivors of domestic abuse, following the Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Act 2023 receiving Royal Assent.

In addition, operating a scheme where parents are not paying their maintenance liability and where the Government guarantee child maintenance payments is not the intent of the Child Maintenance Service’s policy, which is the philosophical issue that we are stressing. The role of the CMS is to encourage parents to take financial responsibility for their children. The scheme is designed to encourage parents to agree their own family-based arrangements wherever possible, and that tends to be in the best interests of children. The CMS must always work in the best interests of children. The statutory scheme exists as a fall-back if parents are unable to reach those voluntary arrangements. The Government do not believe that the state covering the shortfall of unpaid maintenance is the right way to target additional funding appropriately, given that there is no means test for receiving parents.

We are also bringing the Child Maintenance Service into the modern age, having made a number of improvements to ensure that it delivers to the highest standard with a more digital customer focus. In order to get help arranging child maintenance on the digital service, which is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we are making it more accessible for parents to decide what type of arrangement is most suitable for them and to make an application online. Those improvements have already seen new applications rise by 13% in the year to September 2023, and I look forward to seeing further progress in the future. That is a welcome increase that we expect to continue with the removal of the £20 application fee. The upgraded online service allows customers to access and maintain their CMS cases themselves. Twenty-six different changes of circumstances can now be reported online. The advantage of digital systems means the service is, as I have said, available 24 hours a day. Many customer requests are now fully automated, so it is much quicker for parents to manage their own arrangements.

We have also, as I have said, improved the speeding up of enforcement processes. In the quarter ending September 2023, around £23.5 million—more than half—of the child maintenance collected through collect and pay was from parents who had a deduction from earnings order in place at the end of the quarter. Those improvements deliver a modern and efficient service for customers while enabling caseworkers to focus on parents who have more complex issues.

I will try to deal with specific issues that were raised. I might not succeed in three minutes, but I will at least try. I can confirm that the £20 fee has been removed as of yesterday, along with the eradication of debts of £7 and under, which we achieved through delegated legislation—the draft Child Support (Management of Payments and Arrears and Fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2023.

I was equally as concerned as the right hon. Member for East Ham to hear of the case of Rachel Parkin regarding the continuity of the support that she received from that single nominated caseworker. The Department will write to the Chair of the Select Committee to make sure that we properly understand that case and what can be done about it. There will be more to come on that point.

I was asked for updates on the progress of various Acts. It might be unhelpful to confirm that consultations are ongoing, because we want the measures to be proportionate, robust and targeted appropriately. It is never easy to rush consultations through. We are often criticised should we rush a consultation. Equally, I understand, not least from when I was a Back Bencher, that when final reports have been issued by the Government, people like to see action, so that point has been heard. I do not wish to pre-empt any Government decisions on curfews—those are not mine to take—nor would I wish to pre-empt the meeting of the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), with Viscount Younger when that will be fully discussed, I have no doubt. I, like her, await the outcome with great interest on what is discussed.

I have been told I now have one minute left, not three minutes. I would love to talk about fraud, but one point I have observed from my own casework is that very often people know that something is not right. They have suspicions that fraud might be occurring, but when they engage with the CMS it is not always taken forward. One thing that we hope to be able to do by the end of this month, in order to avoid vexatious frauds, is to provide to those making claims an illustrative list of evidence that the financial investigations unit will require to take an investigation forward. That then avoids the disappointment when someone thinks that something is going on, but they cannot prove it. I think that will help the individual stuck in that situation and perhaps also our caseworkers who try to guide people who ring our offices on how to go about it.

Anything that I have not covered I will cover in a letter to Members. On that note, I will sit down.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Further to the Minister’s response, the Prime Minister has been asked similar questions about child poverty in recent Prime Minister’s questions. He usually responds that since 2010, the Conservatives have lifted 1.7 million people out of absolute poverty, which, as you know Mr Speaker, tracks living standards from a fixed point in time. Can the Minister tell me how many more people, on average, Labour lifted out of absolute poverty annually, compared with the 1.7 million since 2010 that the Prime Minister regularly claims?

[Jo Churchill]

Rather than trade numbers, I would say that this is about giving people the dignity of a job. Since 2009-10, 1.7 million fewer people are in absolute poverty after housing costs, including 400,000 fewer children and 1 million fewer working-age adults. I know the hon. Lady said that work was not the Labour party’s priority, but it is very much our priority.

[Alison McGovern]

If the Minister can point to an occasion when I have said that work was not the Labour party’s priority, she ought to say when that was, or she should withdraw that remark.

The answer to my question is that, on average, more than 350,000 more people left poverty in each year of the Labour Government. The Prime Minister’s claim is pathetic. Which of the following does the Minister think had the biggest impact on those poverty numbers? Was it when the Conservatives repealed the Child Poverty Act 2010, was it when they shut down the child poverty unit, was it the collapse in the value of child benefit, or was it the financial chaos caused by a Conservative Prime Minister in September 2022, which put all families’ finances at risk?

[Jo Churchill]

No, it is the fact that over 1 million more people are in work and youth employment is up by around 40%. Ensuring that people have the dignity of work and that, when they are not in work, there is a strong welfare system around them, is what this country needs.

Pensions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Hopefully, the House will be relieved to know that I do not intend to repeat the explanation of this order that the Minister has just given. As he said, the statutory instrument addresses the needs of a specific group of pensioners. We support the measure and will therefore obviously support the order. I will just take a very short amount of time to raise a few other related issues.

Further to the debate that we had on the previous order, Madam Deputy Speaker, you will remember that under Labour we saw an historic fall in pensioner poverty. Unfortunately, that has been rising recently, which is alarming after nearly two decades of decline: one in six pensioners are now living in poverty, with the figure rising to one in four among those who are single. I hope the Minister agrees that Britain should be one of the best countries in the world in which to be a pensioner, so the fact that many are still spending their later years in poverty does not reflect well on us.

Labour in power introduced pension credit, ensuring that pensioners’ weekly income reaches a minimum guaranteed level while offering a whole host of benefits, such as free dental and optical treatment. However, as we have discussed many times across the Dispatch Box, despite highly publicised campaigns, statistics released in October show that 40% of those eligible to claim pension credit are still not doing so. Given that I am sure the Minister shares my concern about this matter, will he confirm what more the Government are doing within their powers to make people aware of their potential pension credit entitlements?

Since we have just rehearsed all of the arguments about the cost of living, I thought the Minister might like to take a moment to reflect on what more the Government can do. As we know, social security systems cannot perform their most basic function if entitlements are eroded by inflation or, worse, not taken up at all. Further to the debate that we have just had, we also need to end the speculation about uprating. Pensioners should not be put through that, any more than anyone else should.

As we all know, the key to a good retirement starts in the workplace, when retirement can often seem like a distant concept. We need people to consider their future early on, which was the logic behind automatic enrolment —a massive policy success started under the last Labour Government, which has driven up the number of people saving. However, too many people are still falling through the net.

In September, the Pensions (Extension of Automatic Enrolment) Act 2023 received Royal Assent with cross-party support, giving Ministers the power to abolish the lower earnings limit for contributions, and reducing the age for being automatically enrolled from 22 to 18. At the time, the pensions Minister, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), said:

“We will consult on the detailed implementation at the earliest opportunity”.

We have not had further information about that implementation, and I wanted to give the Minister the opportunity to share any information about what is happening with those powers. I hope that all Members across this House will agree that the extension of auto-enrolment is a good thing, and that we should crack on with it.

I will make one final point: the roll-out of collective defined-contribution schemes, which provide an income for later life while giving members greater certainty about retirement outcomes that they could achieve, is certainly to be welcomed. However, more needs to be done to ensure that the proper framework is in place for companies that express an interest in CDCs, while ensuring that those who can still join a defined-benefit scheme do so. I would be grateful if the Minister commented on that.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

Very briefly, the Pensions Minister will know, because there was a Westminster Hall debate on this a couple of weeks ago, about some of the issues experienced with defined-benefit pension schemes with companies such as BP not applying the limits that have been recommended by the trustees. Does the shadow Minister agree that we need to ensure that companies that have made promises to pensioners actually pay out?

[Alison McGovern]

I am not entirely sure whether that intervention was for me, so I will let the Minister respond when he winds up. However, on companies keeping their promises, that seems like one of the basics to me.

As I said before, we support these measures and will not oppose the Government’s proposals, but I would very much welcome the Minister’s comments on the questions I have raised.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

Social Security

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for clarifying the way we are taking these orders today. We welcome the social security uprating, because we want to see social security keep pace with prices, particularly at a time of spiking inflation and economic instability. However, it is worth pointing out that before 2010, uprating in the manner we are doing it today was the norm for both Labour and Conservative Governments, but the past decade and a half has seen a change, and a variable approach to uprating from this Government. The debate about uprating has become almost farcical. Year by year there is speculation—I presume from some part of Government—that the uprating that was standard year in, year out under previous Governments may or may not happen.

That speculation does not come out of thin air. It causes immense amounts of distress and worry for people. It is almost as though there has to be a campaign for the status quo, which is not acceptable. I wonder why we are in what seems to be a policy roundabout where every time we have this debate about uprating, only for the Government to do it. That is a problematic way to do what is a normal function of social security: to keep pace with the cost of living.

We have to be honest about the reality of the situation we face. We have had universal credit for a decade or more, and I have been in this House long enough to have heard promise after promise that it would radically improve people’s work incentives, and that people’s position in life would be made much better by universal credit reforms. The DWP has many talented civil servants, who I am sure have worked hard to try to make the customer service elements function better, but we have to look at reality: 400,000 more children are now in poverty than when Labour left office in 2010. That is not acceptable to me.

Most people in poverty today are in work, so the idea that we hear again and again in this Chamber, that the best route out of poverty is work, is simply not true. Two thirds of children in poverty live in a house where someone goes out to work. I would like the Government to recognise that fact. We have had a decade and a half of so-called reform, and all we have done is get back to the situation where children are growing up dealing with the stress of not having enough money in the family home to give them a proper childhood. That is not acceptable. We see the consequences of a decade and a half of Tory rule all around us, whether the food bank parcels in the school office, the nurses who do a 12-hour shift but cannot make ends meet or, in the worst case, the man curled up in a sleeping bag in Westminster tube station as we leave this House. We see the consequences of Conservative Government all around us.

Labour has a plan to get people a better life, able to make ends meet and with a good start for their children. We will ensure that there is a breakfast club in every primary school. We will help people have access to cheaper energy and an insulated home, to deal with the spike in costs that people have faced in recent years. We will reform universal credit, jobcentres and employment support to ensure that people get a better job with better pay, to help them live their life properly and save money for the Treasury. We will have a child poverty strategy that will overhaul universal credit.

On social security, I simply say this: we need an end to the uprating roundabout. We are simply asking for consistency of approach so that, as in previous decades under Governments of all kinds, we have the proper uprating of social security without the constant speculation from wherever it is in the Conservative Government that, somehow, ordinary working people must pay the price of the Government’s economic chaos. That is not fair. Let us end the chaos and have proper, normal uprating in the usual way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Maynard]

I thank everyone who has participated in this debate. I am very disappointed in the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), who seems to think that I do not write my own material. He should know that my private office staff are sitting in trepidation, as I write across every speech they give me in blue and red ink. They never know what will emerge from my mouth. I can assure him that it is all my own work, and he can criticise it all the more for that reason.

I am also disappointed that people think this order is just a technical necessity. I do not call £19 billion of Government spending a technical necessity. It is one of the largest amounts of extra spending in which the Government engage in any particular year, and it will make a considerable difference to the lives of people across the country.

[Alison McGovern]

Do you want a round of applause?

[Paul Maynard]

No, I certainly do not, but I would want to think that those of us in this Chamber did not dismiss the order as a technical measure.

My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) repeated a point that I think he made this time last year—I also made this point when I was sitting in the far corner of the Chamber as a Back Bencher—on the timely application of these measures and whether we ought to make them more promptly after inflation is measured. As a member of the Work and Pensions Committee, he will know that this issue is often discussed, with the discussion often revolving around the robustness of universal credit’s IT system compared with the IT systems for legacy benefits. I am told the hopefully promising news that state pension benefits, in particular, will be moving to a more modern IT platform by 2025, followed by disability benefits, contributory benefits and carer’s allowance, so there is a pathway towards getting all our benefits on to modern IT systems that are more agile in responding to economic situations. I hear his point, and work is under way.

The hon. Members for Glasgow East and for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) both talked about the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and I am a great admirer of its work. As a Back Bencher, I sat on many Zoom meetings and Teams meetings to listen to its briefings. The hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) and I have discussed the essentials guarantee many times, so I take a personal interest in what the Joseph Rowntree Foundation says. Since the period covered by its report, the Government have provided over £104 billion of extra support to help households with the high cost of living. Although I understand that the Joseph Rowntree Foundation will stick to the broad themes of its argument, we need to recognise that Government support has moved on.

I do not want to pre-empt the meeting of the hon. Member for North East Fife with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, which I hope will bring better news than I am able to deliver from the Dispatch Box. I have heard about her letter. My favourite episode of “Fawlty Towers” is “Communication Problems”, which is a comic classic, and the tale she tells is such an example. I am sure my officials have made a note, and we will hopefully follow up with a clarifying letter.

Finally, I turn to the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). Not being the Minister in charge of local housing allowance, I am a little cautious about giving him a more definitive answer at this stage—[Interruption.] Nothing annoys me more than when other Ministers intrude on my brief without telling me, so it is a courtesy to them, nothing more.

The draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order will increase the state pension by 8.5%, in line with the rise in average earnings, and it will increase most other benefit rates by 6.7%, in line with the rise in consumer prices. These changes commit the Government to increased expenditure of £19 billion in 2024-25. They maintain the triple lock, protect pensioners on the lowest incomes and support those in the labour market, while maintaining work incentives and protecting the value of benefits for those who cannot work and who have additional disability needs.

I commend this statutory instrument to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2024, which was laid before this House on 15 January, be approved.

Draft Child Support (Management of Payments and arrears and fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 General Committees

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Latham. Without rehearsing all the arguments ad nauseam, let me say that we support the measure and think it is good that it removes the application fee. The Minister has already explained why that is positive, and we agree with him.

I will not detain colleagues for long. I want to make three quick points and ask the Minister some questions. If the hon. Member for Stroud and the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee are successful in securing a Backbench Business debate, more colleagues will be able to rehearse the issues for longer. A large number of cross-party colleagues would like the country to learn the lessons from their casework. I am one such Member, so I support that initiative for a Backbench debate, and hope that we can discuss these issues again without too much delay.

Following discussion of the measure in the other place, we know that the Government anticipate that the removal of the fee will have the positive impact of increasing the number of agreements. We also know, however, that the Government think that the fee is not the sole reason why there are not as many agreements as we all want. As the Minister has explained, it is very important, for anti-poverty reasons as well as basic fairness, for payments to be made to parents, but the fee is not the only problem. In response to a question asked by my colleague in the other place, the Minister explained in writing that 35%—more than a third—of receiving parents without arrangements said that they wanted a payment arrangement with the other parent. Although we know, as the Minister has explained, that the removal of the fee will have an impact, there is more to do to ensure that more parents secure an arrangement.

What research are the Government undertaking with parents who have experienced the system in order to ensure that it works better? What is the plan? A wide range of MPs and stakeholders know that the system does not work perfectly. It would be good if the Government could say more about how the removal of the fee will help. Furthermore, their own research identifies parents who want an arrangement, so could the Government share their plans for how those parents get one? Could we hear a little more about that research?

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point about the need to know the details of the Government’s research. When the parent who should be paying is self-employed, or employed via a company that their new partner owns, there are often a lot of disputes about how much they actually earn and their household income. Does she agree that it would be interesting to know whether the Government have researched any of those problems, which seem to cross my desk regularly, and to hear their solutions? This measure is good, but it does not really touch the sides of some of those big issues.

[Alison McGovern]

I am coming to that, but my hon. Friend makes the point well. I am sure that the Minister and many colleagues would recognise that there is a broader agenda here about making the service much more effective for parents. I think everybody across the House will be anxious to hear more about that from the Government.

Secondly, I have been in touch with Gingerbread, the organisation for single parents—everybody on the Committee will know it well—about these regulations. It raised a couple of things with me, particularly in relation to the point that the Minister made about survivors of abuse. As he mentioned, previously the fee was waived for survivors of abuse. Gingerbread tells me that that enabled the CMS to know how many survivors of abuse were using the service. It is important that that is calculated, and that the service knows about the body of its service users who are survivors of abuse. When the fee is removed, how will the service know how many of its users are survivors of abuse, so that it can ensure an effective service for those people?

As you will know, Mrs Latham, we have gone on a big journey over the past decade on financial abuse and understanding how, unfortunately, abusers often use arms of the state to continue that abuse, even after separation, and even once protection is in place for the victim of abuse. The Child Maintenance Service is therefore on the frontline in protecting parents who have experienced domestic abuse from experiencing further abuse. If the Minister can say a little more about what training the service has planned, and about Gingerbread’s important question on how we will monitor how many parents using the service are victims of abuse, we would all find that helpful. Gingerbread also points out, quite rightly, that we might anticipate that more people will apply to use collect and pay, so it would be good to know how the Department is planning to ensure that that increase in demand is met.

Finally, we all understand the rationale—the Minister set out the case precisely—for writing off small arrears, particularly when the cost of pursuing them would far outweigh their value, but as the Minister also set out, we want writing off small arrears to increase the effectiveness of the service. Gingerbread says that it is not uncommon for its helpline to receive calls from people who are owed tens of thousands of pounds. Those are the arrears that we want tackled, so will the Minister say how writing off these nugatory amounts will enable the service to become more effective? That is what we all really want. If we can have a debate on this in Back-Bench time, I hope that we will hear from a huge number of colleagues, from right across the House, about what parents have experienced in trying to get debts paid. It is no small thing and can be an extremely frustrating experience.

It would be useful if the Minister could say more about, first, the Government’s research—what they hope to publish and what they hope for—so that we can understand the effectiveness of getting these agreements in place and what parents might find most helpful, beyond removing the fee. Secondly, perhaps he can say more about victims of abuse—how we will monitor them and make sure that the right training and resources are in place in the service. Finally—this is the major point—we all want an effective service. In the end, this is about all our kids in this country. This is about making sure that they do not grow up in poverty, and that their parents have enough money in their pockets to look after them. If the Minister could explain what the plan is to ensure effectiveness, that would be very helpful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Maynard]

I thank both the Front-Bench spokesmen for their support, and for their helpful summary of the questions, which gave me that bit longer to make sure that all my notes for answering them were in the right order. First, the hon. Member for Wirral South mentioned application numbers. The main thing that the Government have been doing is trying to use a more digital service called “get help arranging child maintenance”, which has been operational since 2022 and has seen the number of applications increase. That shows that we can we can create a pathway, so that people going through a breakdown in a relationship can seek out the right support.

The hon. Lady mentioned research. It helpfully says in my notes that research has shown that those on the lowest incomes are least likely to have an effective arrangement. It does not give me much more than that, I am afraid, so I will commit to writing to her on that point. I will try not to have to write to her on any other point, but I am giving the best answers I can.

The hon. Lady rightly raised the issue of domestic abuse. After we have removed the fee, we will continue to capture information about parents who need additional support, including as a consequence of domestic abuse, and ensure that they are able to safely use the service, because there are many safety issues around how money is transferred. We will move away from collecting the figures and towards using externally reported quarterly stats, but we will look at how best to capture the information in a usable format in the future.

The hon. Lady may be aware that CMS has a domestic abuse plan, which outlines key steps for caseworkers to follow to ensure that victims of domestic abuse are supported. That includes advice on contacting the police, for example, if the parent is in immediate danger. CMS can also act as an intermediary in direct pay cases, and provide advice on how to set up bank accounts with a centralised sort code to limit the risk of a parent’s location being traced. We also reviewed our domestic abuse training, and commenced using a single named caseworker to ensure that victims of DA are appropriately supported, so I think we are doing an awful lot on abuse in the home.

[Alison McGovern]

Will the Minister give way?

[Paul Maynard]

I will, and I hope that I can answer the question this time!

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison McGovern]

Could I ask the Minister to be clear on the statistics that will be published about victims of domestic abuse? I understand his point about training and the pathway that will be there, but from the point of view of public transparency, it is important that we can see how many users of the service are victims of domestic abuse, and that the data is publicly reported. I say that simply because, as he will understand, abuse has so often been completely hidden. Many people would be quite shocked to find out how many people are victims of financial abuse, so it is important that that is reported publicly, not just understood within the system. Could the Minister confirm that the Government will still report publicly how many users of CMS are victims of domestic abuse?

[Paul Maynard]

I take the hon. Lady’s point. It says in my brief that CMS will look at how it captures that information. I will ensure that that point is passed on to Viscount Younger in the other place when he is looking at whether the proposals are adequate. No decision has yet been made. Nothing has been ruled out; nothing has been ruled in. I accept her point, and like her, I am a champion of transparency wherever possible, so I will ensure that Viscount Younger writes to the hon. Lady.

On the points that were made about collect and pay and the calculation more generally, we are consulting on how we can improve both those things. I believe that the consultation on collect and pay is yet to start, but we announced in October that we would be consulting on how to collect and transfer maintenance payments. I understand that the consultation on the calculation side of things will also be launched shortly.

Finally, there is a very valid point, which I often hear in my own constituency, about cases involving vast sums that parents are unable to access for one reason or another. Where parents have certain categories of taxable income that are not captured by a standard child maintenance calculation, they can make a request to CMS to have the calculation varied. We have consulted on proposals to include more types of taxable income held by His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in the standard maintenance calculation. The proposals were accepted, and legislation will be brought forward when parliamentary time allows. Cases involving complex income can be investigated by the financial investigation unit, which is a specialist team. Where there is evidence of fraud, the FIU will seek to prosecute, or forward the case to HMRC for action.

In summary, as everyone has agreed, the regulations mark the beginning of a more comprehensive legislative journey towards improving the Child Maintenance Service and represent a clear road map to action. I am committed to working with Viscount Younger to drive these plans forward in order to deliver a fairer, faster service for more families, especially the poorest. I thank everyone for attending the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

All we hear from the Secretary of State on employment is smoke and mirrors, but thankfully the OBR has published the numbers. We have just heard what he believes is happening with employment because of his policies, but when the OBR looked at his policies, did its forecast show the employment rate, compared with today, to be going up or down in 2024-25?

[Mel Stride]

I have already shared the figures with the House, which are that payroll employment is at a near historic high and unemployment is at a near historic low. As the hon. Lady will know, we have never had a Labour Government leave office with unemployment lower at the end of their term than when they started. Youth unemployment went up 45% under the Labour party, whereas under this Conservative Government it has reduced by 45%.

[Alison McGovern]

You can always tell the Conservatives are struggling to answer the questions, Mr Speaker, because they go back to those same old things about what happened under the last Labour Government. After 13 years, they have nothing to be proud of. If what the Secretary of State said was true, we might expect that after a little time some of his policies would work, but is it not true that it is not just next year that the OBR forecasts the employment rate to be down, but the year after that, too?

[Mel Stride]

We will continue to bear down on the level of unemployment. As the hon. Lady knows, economic inactivity has reduced, and we have 300,000 fewer people in economic inactivity than at the peak during the pandemic. We have a plan. Is it not the reality that the Opposition have no plan and no ideas as to how to get those numbers down? We do, and it is working.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The Minister began answering these questions by claiming credit for having better youth unemployment figures now than in the aftermath of a global financial crisis, which seems to me to be a low ambition. As she has heard, we have problems with inactivity and we have more young people who are not doing anything. What account can she give for the fact that, even after 13 and a half long years of Conservative Government, we have worse youth unemployment than Ireland, Norway and the Czech Republic, and that here it is double what it is in Germany and treble what it is in Japan? What on earth has gone wrong?

[Mims Davies]

I think that is a reminder to continually speak up for opportunities for our young people. The current youth employment rate is 53.9%, up three percentage points since 2010. It has been my absolute mission in this Parliament, over the last four and a half years, to focus on young people, with around 140 new youth hubs to support the complex needs of young people. I humbly suggest that the hon. Member goes and looks at the changes that are happening, to see the difference being made in communities up and down the land. We are not writing young people off; we are making sure that we support them. I went to see a new youth hub only last week, and the work being done on housing and with partners is innovative. It means young people with smiles on their faces and their futures in their hands.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I thought the Secretary of State understood that, while unemployment is at a historic low, economic activity is the big challenge before us, particularly when it comes to regional economic inactivity and the huge, near 10-point gap across the regions. The east midlands, London, the north-east, the north-west and the west midlands all have higher inactivity rates than the south-east. The Tories have had 13 years to close that gap, so can I ask the Secretary of State: is his plan really to make levelling up a reality by leaving it to Labour?

[Mel Stride]

Given that there has never been a Labour Government who have left office with unemployment anything other than higher than they found it in the first place, I do not think I would leave employment to Labour. On the hon. Lady’s point, economic inactivity is important and it is a major focus for my Department. It has of course reduced substantially since its peak during the pandemic, having fallen by around 350,000.

Department for Work and Pensions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

This has been a good, important and timely debate. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, on bringing the debate to the Floor of the House. He rightly opened it by placing in context the size of the Department and its central place at the heart of economic policy, and discussed the work of his Committee, which has been substantial, on looking into some of the Department’s very significant flaws. Given the economic situation the country now faces, the work of the Committee has never been more important. As he mentioned, it has published very important and significant reviews, and some of the recommendations have been adopted by the Government, so I applaud him for securing the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), in her usual way, explained the manner in which poverty harms people not just in their financial life but in every single aspect of their life. The Government would do well to listen to her.

I want to make some brief remarks—with an emphasis on brief—as many good points have already been made and I will not be repeating them all. I want to get to the heart of the points that have been discussed, in particular on universal credit. I have been in this House long enough to remember the country before universal credit, so I am able to compare and contrast the system we had before with the one we have now. I offer this reflection based on that experience.

On its introduction, universal credit was claimed to be a kind of cure-all which would release everyone from the so-called trap of poverty. I did not think that that was going to be true when it was introduced and I do not think it is true now. The Department for Work and Pensions, in its spending and policy choices, has to be far more than just universal credit and social security, important though they are. As much as the pensions side of the Department is a huge part of its spending and very important, it must also be the department for dignity: the dignity of work and the dignity of well-functioning, decent social protection. Those two areas of policy must work hand in hand to ensure that the ups and downs of life do not upend life chances when unfortunate things happen. We should be using good work and social protection to help people to move on and move up in life. The Chair of the Select Committee and other Members have provided a good survey of what is happening in the Department at the moment. I would argue that on both work and social protection it is failing.

On work, to put it simply, we have fewer people in work now than before the pandemic. That cannot be a success. We have businesses crying out for staff, yet, unlike in other countries, our employment rate has not recovered from the pandemic. That is a huge failure. Pay, the money in people’s pockets, has been stagnant for the past decade. We think about the promises made about universal credit and all the Department does, so what questions has the Minister asked about that? What research has he commissioned to get underneath why pay is so stagnant? We have had reviews of in-work progression. The Government have claimed that they want to tackle our productivity crisis. What research and evidence has the DWP actually published to show, despite the claims made about universal credit supporting people to escape the so-called poverty trap that Conservative Members felt previous Governments had created, why we have had such stagnant levels of pay?

It is arguable that the Department’s policy choices might have exacerbated the labour market crisis, so I ask the Minister again: what policies does he have now, today, to help people escape low-paid work? For all the Government have talked about the possibilities of universal credit, why has it delivered so very little in terms of the money in people’s pockets and their chances of getting on? Has universal credit really delivered all that was promised? On all those areas—work incentives, the chances families have to do better, pay progression and supporting employers to get the skilled staff they need—I look at all the Department does and I have many questions about the disappearance of that promised success.

We have had a series of failed employment schemes. Kickstart failed to deliver what it was said it would deliver. We heard from Members about restart and the work and health programme, and all we do not know about what they are doing. Looking at the labour market and everything that the Bank of England has said about the consequences for our economy of the state of the labour market, does the Minister really believe that the DWP is helping, or is it a hindrance? I would love to hear him talk about published evidence that the Department’s policies are actually helping.

Finally on work, one major challenge for our economy is the imbalanced labour market. Businesses in many towns across the country are crying out for staff, yet we have an unemployment challenge. Some towns and cities have areas where unemployment is twice the national average. How can that be right in a country that has such a need for staff? Does the Minister really believe that his Department’s spending and policy choices are helping? Work should be the way that all of us achieve our hopes and ambitions. I just wish the Department was able to live up to those ambitions.

As many people have said, social security should be the backstop that puts a floor beneath families, yet at almost every step over the past decade the Conservative Government have made that harder. At every turn, the political turbulence they have created has had an economic cost for our country as a whole, and for families up and down the country. The inflation we now face makes life harder for everybody, but not equally. If we look at the money families must now find to put food on the table and pay their bills, we know that the choices made by the Tories have made life harder for those who were already finding it tough. Their failings on energy have made life much harder, in particular for people with disabilities who pay significant extra costs. It is a well-evidenced phenomenon that people who face illness or disability have significant challenges with the rising cost of energy. The Conservative Government have never taken their needs into account enough. I agree with comments made by both my colleagues on the Select Committee that the relationship between the Department and people with disabilities is not nearly good enough to achieve what we would wish for them.

The evidence of failure is all around us, whether it is the open doors of food banks or the closed doors of businesses who have been unable to survive this crisis of inflation and staff shortages. On the housing crisis, I would bet anything—I am not a betting woman, but I would none the less bet anything—that almost every Member has seen a rise in their housing case load. Even those with a relatively low case load have seen it rise in relation to the recent housing crisis.

One fact above all shines out of the Department’s accounts: rising ill health, which is having economic consequences for all of us and disastrous consequences for people who are trying to earn money to keep their family housed and fed. Over the past decade or more, the Tories have been not just not up to the challenge; they have actively made it worse.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We come to the shadow Minister.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The Bank of England sets interest rates independently, but economic inactivity and the wider state of the labour market is a feature of our economy that will influence whether the Prime Minister is able to meet his promise to halve inflation. Can the Secretary of State tell us exactly what targets have been agreed by his Department with the Treasury on the role of the labour market in reducing inflation?