Child Support Agency

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir. I add my praise to that of other hon. Members for my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), for obtaining this valuable and important debate. My hon. Friends and other colleagues have also made useful and admirable contributions. Many of the comments I wanted to make have already been made, so I will briefly voice the concerns of parents in my constituency.

Like many hon. Members who are present, I am contacted all too often by single parents who have struggled with the system and do not receive the support they need for their children. It is a tragic fact that up to half of UK children of separated families live in poverty, but it is one that is borne out by many of the cases I have assisted with in Gosport. The failures in the Child Support Agency, whether they arise from poor administration or bad decisions, have had a direct impact on the well-being and security of children throughout the country.

The hugely valuable Gosport citizens advice bureau has dealt with almost 100 CSA problems in the past year alone, and that highlights the instability caused by the CSA’s failure to secure payments. Most frequently, parents fall into arrears with their rent or mortgage, and then face the threat of losing their home, which of course gives rise to many other issues. One disabled lady in my constituency was advised by the CSA not to bother applying for child support at all, as her two children were 15 years old. That meant that she could not afford to stay in her home, in spite of her significant care needs.

As my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) mentioned, the often irregular and unpredictable actions of the CSA also cause problems for non-resident parents. In one case, the CSA took payments ranging from £400 to £600 over a number of months from one of my constituents, without any notice. While it is without doubt the duty of both parents to support their children, such actions mean people suddenly find themselves unable to pay their own household bills.

I am also frequently left baffled by the catalogue of errors in the administrative handling of CSA cases. By the time many constituents approach me, they have endured months or even years of inaction, as other hon. Members have said. When contacted by my office, the CSA often, to its credit, gets things sorted relatively quickly, but that raises the question why it should be necessary for things to get to a stage when someone needs to contact their Member of Parliament.

That is why I welcome the Government’s reforms to the CSA. So much time and money is lost in its complex, creaking bureaucracy and the Government are right to do all they can to empower parents to come to family-based arrangements. However, in the light of my experiences in Gosport, I seek reassurance from the Minister that the Government will not neglect those for whom family-based arrangements, negotiation and collaboration are sadly not an option. Many people in my constituency have ex-partners in the armed forces, for instance, which presents greater challenges as their long periods of absence from the UK mean that they are not around to take part in the negotiations, which take time.

My hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough mentioned—as, indeed, did virtually every hon. Member who spoke—the problem of those whose ex-partners earn very little on paper, although the new car on the drive and frequent sunshine holidays belie that, and suggest more cash in hand. It may take significant joined-up thinking between Departments to address that, but we must do so in the interests of fairness, and for children’s long-term well-being. I wonder if the Minister has any thoughts on how to address the issue. It is vital that the Government’s far-sighted reforms should put vulnerable children, and, indeed, common sense, at the heart of all we do.