Child Support (Enforcement) Bill

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Redfern, for introducing the Bill and all noble Lords who have spoken. As we are in the business of confessing past connections, I should probably remind the House of a very distant time when I served as the senior independent director of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, and my time as the director of the National Council for One Parent Families, now joined with Gingerbread.

The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, mentioned that this is a Private Member’s Bill but that it would have been nice for it to have found government time. It is not the only one. You wait a long time for a child support Bill, and at least two come along within the month. We currently have two child support Private Members’ Bills going—one more and they could easily have found time for one government Bill, I should have thought. None the less, I am glad it is here and we have a chance to debate it, and I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Redfern, for bearing the responsibility so firmly.

It was a delight to hear the speeches today. It is good to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, back in this territory, released from the confines of government. When they say, “Let Bartlet be Bartlet”, I say, “Let Stedman-Scott be Stedman-Scott”, and let us have more of this passion from the Back Benches. It was also good to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, who I very much regard as my noble friend. I pay tribute to her: for so many years she has had a passion for standing up for children and families who are living in poverty and an understanding of how it is often women at the front line who just hold things together. When the budget is too tight, it is the women who go without food themselves, track down the cheapest things and do all it takes. I commend the noble Baroness for all her work and understanding over the years.

Child support systems operate in sensitive territory. It is in the space between parents who are no longer together and, as the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, said, are sometimes no longer talking to each other, and it is difficult. The reality is that some parents simply do not pay what they owe for their children, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, illustrated clearly. I know it is difficult having a break-up, but no matter whose fault it was, you may walk away from your marriage or your relationship but you do not get to walk away from your children. You retain responsibility for your children, and they have a right to expect the support of both parents. The state also has an interest, because, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, and others explained clearly, child maintenance has an important role in reducing child poverty. I will not rehearse that, but there is a public interest for all of us in having a well-functioning child maintenance system. We on these Benches fully support any measures that will help to get non-resident parents, the paying parents, paying what they owe to support their children.

Concerns have been expressed about the performance of the Child Maintenance Service both here and when the Bill was debated in the Commons, but I think there is general agreement that enforcement needs to be stepped up and, in particular, speeded up. Given that, we welcome the provisions of the Bill, which should give extra tools and speed up the use of tools that are already there.

The noble Baroness, Lady Redfern, explained very clearly what happens if a parent fails to make payments as directed: the CMS can use deduction from earnings orders, or DEOs, to try to get the money back in. If they fail, they have to go to a magistrates’ or sheriff court to get a liability order before going to the next level of enforcement agents, stopping people having passports, or whatever.

This Bill changes that situation by amending the uncommenced provisions in Section 25 of the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008. When those amended provisions are commenced, the Secretary of State will be able to make administrative liability orders which will certify the debt that is owed by the paying parent and allow the CMS to take those further enforcement actions without going to court.

I have some questions of clarification. I say at the outset that I am not asking these questions to make difficulties or because I do not support the Bill. Some of them are questions I might in other circumstances have asked in Committee, but Committee stage may prove to be an unnecessary delay to the passage of the Bill, so I hope the House will indulge me in asking some of those questions now.

First, the 2008 Act allowed for some of its provisions to be commenced by SIs at different stages, but can the Minister explain why these provisions were never commenced? Is there a reason why the Government did not do so, for example, when child support was reorganised wholesale a decade ago? Secondly, I am interested to understand the reasons for the change in approach from that set out in the uncommenced provisions of the 2008 Act.

I am sure other noble Lords will have found it quite hard to get to the bottom of what the Bill is doing. The Bill amends the provisions of the 2008 Act; those in turn amend the 1991 Act. However, the provisions that the Bill amends were never commenced. One of the results of that, I presume, is that, if you go on to legislation.gov.uk and look up the 1991 Act to try to trace through what this will do, you will find that the clauses being amended are not there; they do not exist. I can only assume that the reason for that is that they were never commenced. Perhaps the Minister could tell me that.

I had to get the help of a clerk. In the absence of that or a Keeling schedule, the only way to work out what the Bill will do is to take the 2008 Act, lay it on top of the 1991 Act, lay the Bill on top of the 2008 Act and then trace through what the end result will look like. I did that because I am sad.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

A little less mirth at this point, if you do not mind; I am not that sad!

I suggest that if this happens again, although it is an unusual set of circumstances, offering a Keeling schedule to all the sad people around would be a good idea at the outset. It might save us all a lot of time.

There is an added complication, in that, at Second Reading in the Commons, my honourable friend Matt Rodda MP asked why it was necessary for the regulation-making powers in the Bill to be so broad. The Minister, Mims Davies, responded in Committee:

“I know that Baroness Stedman-Scott wrote to him on this point”.—[Official Report, Commons, Child Support (Enforcement) Bill Committee, 1/3/23; col. 10.]


I could not track down the letter in the Library or anywhere else, but a letter was issued on Wednesday this week under the signature of the noble Viscount, the current Minister. I understand that it is to be placed in the Library; I would be grateful if he could confirm that for the record. I am grateful to him for sorting that out. It is a very helpful letter, now that I see it. I am simply saying this on the record so that anybody coming after me who wants to trace the proceedings through will know where to find the relevant papers if anyone else out there is as sad as me and wants to do this in due course.

The effect of all this is that I struggle to be completely clear about what the Bill is doing, so I will ask a few questions. They might be stupid questions because I might have misunderstood it, but I would be grateful to get clarity on the record for now.

As well as moving to administrative liability orders, the big change seems to relate to the process of appealing a liability order. Section 25 of the 2008 Act allows appeal against an order to the First-tier Tribunal. I think that the Bill changes that to a right of appeal to a court. Can the Minister set out the reasons for that change?

I am also not completely clear about the position in relation to a court being able to query the amount of a child support liability. In that letter to Matt Rodda dated 17 May, the noble Viscount said:

“It is also currently the case with court issued liability orders—the magistrate or sheriff cannot question the underlying maintenance calculation”.


Indeed, Section 33(4) of the 1991 Act says:

“On an application under subsection (2), the court or (as the case may be) the sheriff shall not question the maintenance assessment under which the payments of child support maintenance fell to be made”.


I am sorry; I did say that I am sad.

I think the reason for this is that, at the moment, the matter would need to be dealt with on appeal at the First-tier Tribunal. The letter also says:

“The quantum of the debt is dealt with via the Appeals Tribunal—a paying parent can ask the Child Maintenance Service to reconsider any calculation, within 30 days of the calculation decision being made, through the mandatory reconsideration process”.


I am not sure whether that refers to the current situation or to that which will obtain after the Bill takes effect. So I ask the Minister: at the moment—that is, under the previous Act—is it the case that, if the Secretary of State goes to court to get an order, the court cannot question the amount of the liability but the parent can go to the First-tier Tribunal to appeal either the amount or the imposition of a liability order?

I also need help working out what happens after the Bill takes effect. New subsection (4), to be inserted by Clause 4(2), says:

“On an appeal under regulations under subsection (3), the court must not question the maintenance calculation by reference to which the order was made”.


Can the Minister clarify whether, once the Bill takes effect, the parent can appeal the imposition of the liability order to a court but not the amount of the liability? If so, how will a parent be able to appeal the amount of a liability order in future? Will it be only through mandatory reconsideration, or will there be an appeal route thereafter? I am not objecting to these provisions, just seeking clarity on them.

Finally, Section 33(5) of the 1991 Act says:

“If the Secretary of State designates a liability order for the purposes of this subsection it shall be treated as a judgment entered in a county court for the purposes of section 98 of the Courts Act 2003”.


Can the Minister say whether that will still apply to administrative liability orders issued by the Secretary of State?

Having said all of that technical stuff, we certainly do not want to oppose the Bill. Labour wholeheartedly supports the principle that both parents should support their children, that non-resident parents should pay child maintenance and that there should be enforcement for those who fail to pay, especially those who go to the steps that the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, reminded us of. I am sorry to say that a considerable number of other examples are out there.

It is clear that enforcement of child maintenance obligations needs to be improved. The Bill should make a contribution to that end by speeding up the process by which non-resident parents can be made to pay what they owe. I hope, with the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, that we will in future see a further reduction in those who are not paying all that they owe, and that more children will eventually get the support of both of their parents, as they have every right to expect. For now, I simply thank all noble Lords who spoke today for some excellent speeches. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Redfern, for her work in this House and Siobhan Baillie MP in the other. I look forward to the reply.