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

Debate between Alison McGovern and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

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.