Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Bill

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Friday 3rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) on bringing forward this incredibly important Bill. Domestic abuse is truly awful. It is insidious behaviour that goes on behind closed doors, making victims feel traumatised in their own homes. The point of the Bill is that domestic abuse does not necessarily stop when couples separate. It is unacceptable that this behaviour can continue through economic abuse after couples separate.

There have been many cases, including in my constituency, where the separated woman—it tends to be a woman—cannot after separation get payments through the Child Maintenance Service, and it is clear that their partner is withholding payments as a way of continuing their control over their victim through economic abuse. In the current system, there is no way the CMS can stop that; it simply does not have the power to do so. The current system allows the continued economic abuse of victims.

It is important to remember that it is not just the parent victim of abuse who is affected: the children are, too, as this money is used for their upkeep. There have been cases in my constituency where single-parent mothers could not get the funding and were clearly completely out of funds, and ultimately it was their children who suffered. That is utterly unacceptable.

It is therefore important to make a change so the CMS can, when there is abuse, put people on collect and pay services to break the link between abuser and abused. It is important that one parent cannot simply object to that; they must not continue to have a veto. I welcome the earlier amendment to make the Bill cover Northern Ireland. It is unconscionable that it does not cover the entire UK, but this is a devolved issue; however, we do not have a Northern Ireland Government at present.

I totally support the measures in the Bill, although there needs to be further thought on the charging structure: the maintenance liability of 20% for the paying parent seems fair, but the 4% charge on the receiving parent should be reconsidered. I wholeheartedly support the Bill and am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye for introducing it.