Child Support (Enforcement) Bill

Baroness Stedman-Scott Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Redfern for sponsoring this important Bill in this House. The Bill is important, as it will help to ensure that action is taken to get money to children who desperately need it sooner rather than later.

When I first arrived in the DWP as a Minister, I found that one of my responsibilities was the Child Maintenance Service. I quickly found out that it was not the portfolio area that many Ministers were clamouring to take responsibility for. I suppose you could say that in some cases it might have been the hospital pass. Having said that, once I understood how important it was and how much children and families needed this money, I tried to get to grips with it—and, as some would say, I became quite obsessed with child maintenance. My first ministerial visit was to Gingerbread, and what a baptism of fire that was. I learned more in the couple of hours I spent there than I probably would have just by reading books and papers.

It became very clear to me that some paying parents would do anything they could to avoid accepting responsibility for their children. Noble Lords would not believe the lengths that people would go to in order to avoid doing it. I toyed with the idea of giving some examples. I was not going to, but let me give your Lordships one: getting your brother to do a DNA test to prove that you are not the father so you do not have to pay. That is outrageous. Of course, some hide income in other accounts as well. There are some people who genuinely cannot pay, and there are some who can but who mess about a bit, delay it and cause havoc in the home. But there are some people who shamelessly do everything they can to avoid paying their maintenance. I was not going to have that, and I know that my noble friend the Minister is not going to have that either.

The Child Maintenance Service has a range of tools at its disposal to ensure that it gets the rightful payments that are due. Equally, I should say that there are many parents who do pay—let others follow their example. Exactly how will the Bill improve the experience of child maintenance customers and speed up the process? How much time will the introduction of this administrative liability order save?

I make another plea to my noble friend. For those paying parents who are in dispute with the Child Maintenance Service—there are a fair few of them—I ask that the new liability enforcement orders will not be applied until their appeals have been resolved. As I have said, the Child Maintenance Service has a number of enforcement powers at its disposal. Can my noble friend tell the House what is being done to ensure that existing powers are being used effectively and, if possible, can he share with the House how many orders the Child Maintenance Service currently obtains? Securing payments from paying parents has an impact on the reduction of child poverty. Can my noble friend tell us the effect that child maintenance has on children growing up in poverty?

The Child Maintenance Service is not perfect, but I ask your Lordships to understand and appreciate the effort and commitment of the child maintenance team in using all its powers to secure funding. Please, do not underestimate the effort that is put in. As Minister Tom Pursglove said in the other place, the Child Maintenance Service

“is committed to delivering service and support to the highest standard and is working hard to transform itself into a more customer-focused, digital organisation, which I am sure is something we all welcome. Although there is still much more we can do, the CMS should no longer carry the stigma with which its predecessors were associated”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/3/23; col. 1119.]

I pay tribute to the child maintenance team, its leadership and its delivery, and especially to the financial investigation unit. If noble Lords spent some time with it, they would see how amazing it is at finding things that other people have not been able to find. At this point, I pay tribute to Arlene Sugden, who led the organisation and has now retired, Chris Smith, and Stuart Richards. If I owed money, I would not want him on my back—I can tell your Lordships that.

Finally, if your Lordships have not gathered already, I am fully supportive of the Bill. I hope that the whole House will stand four-square behind it. I know that there are many other changes that can be made to the Child Maintenance Service and lots of other things we wanted to introduce that have not got here yet. I hope my noble friend the Minister will get them here as quickly as possible, and then we will speed up the process to get more money to children who really need it.