Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Freud]

I would be utterly delighted to invite noble Lords, but not too many. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, will give permission for the Official Opposition team to join him. If he does, I would be delighted to see you all.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

If there are invitations floating around, could I add my name to the list? Two things worry me that we have not touched on. I support the amendment. I do not think that any of us really understands the full consequences of localism as it is finally rolled out. In terms of the public purse as generally described, if we do not have sensible means inquiries within the DWP provisions, we may just be handing on costs, charges and families in distress to our local government colleagues. That does not take us very far.

Another obvious point is that the legal aid changes that are coming are very worrying. If we look at some of the wider context in any such meeting, that would be extremely valuable, too.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, I reassure my noble friend the Minister that I am not asking to come to this meeting, but, as somebody who has sat through long hours in Grand Committee, I would diffidently make the suggestion that both matters might be treated at the same meeting.

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Moved by

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

113AA: After Clause 129, insert the following new Clause—
“Social Security Advisory Committee
In section 173(5)(a) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 for “coming into force of the enactment under which those regulations are made” substitute “enactment under which those regulations are made receiving Royal Assent”.”

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

My Lords, this amendment is tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Thomas of Winchester. I think I can dispatch this with as much speed as possible. It is an important probing amendment to try to persuade the Government to clarify the position of the Social Security Advisory Committee beyond doubt in the context of this Bill.

As we all know, the Social Security Advisory Committee sheds light on some of the more obscure regulations and regulatory powers that flow from primary legislation and has an important additional duty to give advice and assistance to the Secretary of State. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Freud, who I think is the responsible Minister, is very careful in his duty to the Social Security Advisory Committee, which is welcome. It is welcome as far as the committee is concerned as well.

After Royal Assent, there is a process that has been going on for some time. Members of the Social Security Advisory Committee—they are technical experts, in the main—can self-refer pieces of secondary legislation where they feel there is an important point to make, to explore or to advise Parliament of. They sift every statutory instrument, and they use their discretion to self-refer. It all works rather well. As far as I can recall, until the Social Security Administration Act 1992 primary social security statutes were much more expansive and descriptive and most had their own time limit at which the Social Security Advisory Committee could take charge of regulations and self-refer. It was usually after a period of something like six months, but sometimes different statutes made different arrangements.

After 1992, there was an understanding that six months was the most appropriate period because Parliament could in theory be considered to have introduced all the salient facts, discussed them and come to conclusions that would not change much in six months. I think things have changed since then, because we are now dealing with skeletal primary statutes. This Bill is no exception. There must be up to 200 regulations in here. In the past we have seen some regulations being scrutinised by the Social Security Advisory Committee only after six months of the implementation of the provisions in the individual clauses.

This is a probing amendment. I hope that the Government will go away and think carefully about this. In this Bill in particular, because it is a significant change of direction, regulations will start pouring out of the department, so we will have many hours of happy discussions downstairs in secondary instrument debates almost as soon as this Bill gets Royal Assent. I want to be clear about exactly where the SSAC fits into the future of that. The implementation of the Bill and the rollout of provisions will, in any case, take a long while, so circumstances could change quite dramatically not just financially but socially, culturally and in others ways as well. I for one would feel safer if we had an assurance—even if it was in the Bill—that there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that, six months after Royal Assent and when the ink was dry after Her Majesty’s pen had scraped the official signature— if that is what happens these days—across the goatskin, the Social Security Advisory Committee would immediately thereafter have access to the regulation-making power that flowed from the universal credit and all the other provisions in this particular legislation.

Obvious questions flow from that. Does the SSAC have the discretion, authority or interest in picking what regulations to concentrate on? Speaking for myself, I trust its judgment in doing that. If, for every 10 secondary instruments that it looked at, it said that Parliament should look at two, I would be absolutely content to leave it to make that decision and use its discretion in that way. That is based on years of working with the committee and being confident that its members know what they are doing and have regard to the public interest, as well as having the depth and knowledge of experience that they have arrived at over many years. I can give colleagues comfort that they could do that properly.

I am not even going to ask for more resources. I would like to, but in these straitened times it would be hard to say that as we could double the workload we need to double the staff. I am not saying that. I am asking for clarity about when its remit commences. I think that we will all need help in trying to understand. I know that the Minister has done his best to provide the Committee with draft regulations as soon as they become available, but there are still huge gaps. We are taking a lot on trust. As legislators, we could feel more confident that we were on top of what was being done in Parliament if the Social Security Advisory Committee had unfettered access to discretionary self-referral of statutory instruments after six months after Royal Assent. I beg to move.

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester]

My Lords, my name is also on this amendment. My noble friend has explained the six-month rule. I would say that the DWP has recently interpreted it creatively. The rule was originally brought in partly to allow for the quick implementation of regulations and partly to stop the wasteful duplication of the same evidence being produced for the statutory consultation undertaken by the SSAC as for the parliamentary debate on the Bill. It dates back to 1973 and the predecessor committee, the National Insurance Advisory Committee, but that reasonable rule has been stretched beyond reason when a year, say, after Royal Assent, whole sections of Acts can be activated, at which point the DWP starts the clock to begin the six-month exclusion period.

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[Lord Freud]

It never failed in the past. They also underplay their ability to gather the views of stakeholders that have been coming and do come to them directly. I suggest that a major expansion of the powers of the SSAC, which this would represent in practice, is not appropriate. Any regulations for universal credit that rely on existing legislation relating to claims, awards, payments and joint claimants will still be subject to SSAC examination. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

I do not know whether I am more frightened now than I was previously. I accept that there is a capacity issue, but I am looking for the comfort that I have heard in the past that significant matters will reach our desks as legislators faster. None of us can keep up with the flow of things. If you are just a guerrilla opposition Member, which I used to be, the default position was to table negative prayers against everything.

The Minister has to be careful that we do not get back to that safety default position where you could just give the Minister of the day a bit of a kicking at the Dispatch Box and go home. Sometimes you might hit lucky on something that the Government did not want you to know about, but that is not where we want to be. I absolutely accept that the Minister in particular has been transparent to a fault. You can see straight through him on things that are coming down the track. It is impossible to read it all, but I worry that he will struggle if these regulations come in in wodges and packages immediately after Royal Assent. I do not want people like me to be put into the position where I think, “Well, safety first. Let us just pray against it anyway”. That would not be sensible.

I would like the SSAC to say, “Of this batch, if you want to concentrate on anything, this is what you should concentrate on”. That would be massively reassuring to me. I would go home at the weekend thinking that I was earning whatever it is that we get to come here. Obviously, I will withdraw this amendment, but I hope that the Minister will reflect on that point. This is a probing amendment. I understand capacity issues and the importance of him using his expertise within the Government to get to a better place. I will read the record and try not to worry more than I did before I tabled the amendment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 113AA withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

113B: Clause 131, page 101, line 10, at end insert—
“( ) After section 1 of the Child Support Act 1991 there is inserted—
“Effective maintenance arrangements
(1) The main objective of the Secretary of State in applying the provisions of this Act shall be to maximise the number of those children who live apart from one or both parents for whom effective maintenance arrangements are in place.
(2) The Secretary of State shall prepare and lay before Parliament a report on a bi-annual basis giving details of the progress achieved under subsection (1) above in maximising the number of children who live apart from one or both parents for whom effective maintenance arrangements are in place.””

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

My Lords, given the hour and the fact that we are turning to a completely fresh, but very important, subject, perhaps I can be allowed to introduce skeletally the first clutch of four amendments. Amendment 113B, which stands in my name and the names of other noble Lords, inserts a new section into the Child Support Act 1991 to maximise the maintenance payment of money to children separated from their parents.

I would like to get to the second group of amendments as fast as we can. In trying to contrive a debate that made sense, it was necessary to tease out some of the important themes relating to child support, and the only way I could sensibly do that was with these four amendments: Amendment 113B, which deals with a duty to maximise benefit; Amendment 113C, which deals with the level of services; Amendment 113D, which looks at equality of treatment in gateway access; and Amendment 113F, which deals with legacy cases and how they relate to the new gateway. If we can deal with those expeditiously by way of introduction, we can then get on to some of the more apposite provisions in terms of charging. I hope that we will be able to do that in good order.

I do not know why I am so personally wrapped up in child support legislation. I think it is partly because I was around in 1991 when the first Act was introduced, and I have seen it through all its stages: the 1995 Act, the 2000 Act, 2007, 2008 and here we are in 2001—

[Noble Lords]

2011!

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

It feels like 2001. I beg the Committee’s pardon. It should have been 2011, and it may even be 2012 by the time we get there.

These two or three clauses have deep significance, and they have to be read. I took the trouble to reread them at the weekend. They differ quite substantially in tone from the rubric and narrative that the Government are advocating for this change. They insert quite dramatic hurdles, particularly for parents with care. They introduce a new level of fiscally driven tension between getting the savings that CMEC and the department are looking for and the maximisation of the flow of benefits to parents with care and their children.

This is the new, new CSA—CSA 2.5 or CSA 3—that we are heading for in 2012. I will go to the great Parliament in the sky a very unhappy bunny if this one goes wrong as well. It is not a question of allocating blame; I am as responsible as anybody. I thought that the provisions that were introduced early on were fit for purpose. However, there is a huge gap between policy creation and the implementation of this very difficult area of public policy. It is a deeply troubled area and we need to be very careful that what we are doing is apposite and right for the people it is designed to serve.

It is important to mention the staff who laboured under the introduction of these provisions. I think that the Minister in the Commons, Maria Miller, mentioned them rather glancingly in the Public Bill Committee. She said that the actions of the staff resulted in the measure not falling flat on its face, particularly around 2003 when everything was going wrong. If it had not been for the dedication of the professionals who ran the CSA centres and worked through the stuck cases that went into manual administration, the whole thing would have collapsed. I want to make clear that although I think that in the past the policy has been totally inadequate, I do not mean in any sense to criticise the professionals who were asked to administer it. By and large, they played a great game and without them we would have been in a much worse situation.

The background political context to this is slightly worrying as well. It would be helpful to be told why there has been no response to the Select Committee report that was published in July. As colleagues know, Governments have to respond to Select Committee recommendations within a two-month period, although there is a bit of a purdah period over the summer. For a set of important recommendations that are absolutely apposite to this group of amendments to be published and to have no government response is indicative of something: either something very good or something very difficult is happening.

My noble friend has now been invited to enter the trench of child support and maintenance. I cannot think of anybody more appropriate to man a trench than my noble friend Lord De Mauley. I welcome him to the task. I hope he is not considered to be expendable infantry—perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Freud, has neatly side-stepped the graveyard pass. Can we be told what is happening with the Select Committee report? Furthermore, the draft regulations were supposed to be made available to the Committee by the end of 2012. Perhaps we will get them soon, very soon or very, very soon, but there are only days left before these regulations are due. I am picking up in the corridors here at Westminster a general political unease—this unease crosses parties and is felt not just by one side or the other—about the family implications of some of these changes, particularly around charging which we will come to in a minute. Some of us are old enough to remember when a £44 charge was introduced in 1995, which did not last very long. I wonder what has changed. I think that that £44 charge lasted about 18 months before it was realised that it cost more to collect than it brought in and the whole thing collapsed, but here we are again with charging. I ask myself what is different.

My next question impacts on all four of the amendments we are discussing. Is the 2012 CSA 3 or CMEC 3—or whatever the new, new system is being called—on track? The annual report of the CMEC/CSA that was produced earlier this year noted that the major projects authority was asking some very searching questions, and raising doubts, about challenges that were being faced with yet another new computer system. I do not know whether the system is in Warrington or whether it is an agile system. I hope that it is both, but I hope that it works. If we could get an assurance about the readiness of the 2012 relaunch, it would be valuable in our consideration of all three groups of amendments around this policy.

I also want to ask about costs. I looked at the Work and Pensions Select Committee report on the rest of the comprehensive spending review period and am puzzled about what exactly the costs are. At paragraph 75, the report states:

“Noel Shanahan indicated that CMEC’s aim was to achieve at least a 30% reduction in costs, in common with other parts of Government”

over the CSR period. We all know that the previous annual report, for 2009-10, indicated that the CMEC was spending £572 million. At paragraph 76, Noel Shanahan is quoted as saying that the transition to the new system in 2012 would cost,

“in the region of between £150 million to £200 million in terms of additional costs”.

Could some clarity be introduced as to over what period that refers to? How is that money being spent and how does it measure up to the 30 per cent reduction that Mr Shanahan was talking about? I am not clear as to the spend profile and the business case for charging—we will come on to that later. A reduction of 30 per cent on a budget of £572 million will put immense cost pressures on the agency through 2012 and beyond. It is very important, in order to make sense of this group of amendments, to know what the Government are planning to spend and what the business case is.

We have all had the benefit of the excellent work that has been done by Gingerbread and other groups that have been briefing us. Amendment 113B would make sure that the principal objective available to CMEC in its previous non-departmental-public-body status, to maximise the number of those children who live apart from one or both parents for whom effective maintenance arrangements are in place, was enshrined in law. CMEC is being abolished as a non-departmental public body and being taken into an executive agency, and therefore does not have that objective. All we have now is assurances from Ministers. The Minister, Maria Miller, gave rather a weak assurance to the Public Bill Committee, saying that we could rely on ministerial assurances. I am sure that we can, but that is not my experience with all Ministers all the time. I should like to hear what the Government have to say about the prospect of trying to put back that basic overriding objective into the work of the commission. As a consequence, a two-yearly report on progress on meeting that objective would be valuable.

I wonder whether we could use Amendment 113C to ask the Minister to explain to us a little bit about how the new support services will be rolled out and, again, how much money is involved in their provision. A £30 million fund is available through the Department for Education, which oversees a range of grant-funded relationship and family support services.

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[Lord De Mauley]

I shall come back to that if I may.

With the right support in place to help parents collaborate better, more children will be able to benefit from effective family-based maintenance arrangements. Outcomes for children across a range of measures are almost always best when parents work together. We want to make it easier for parents to access support by ensuring that it is available in a more co-ordinated way.

We want the people who know families best to shape these plans. That is why we asked a steering group of academics and voluntary sector experts to help us develop proposals for better coordinating support at a local and national level and as to how most appropriately to measure success. I am pleased to be able to say that we will look to act on this advice and to commit increased funding as detailed proposals emerge. This could include, for example, a web portal or a helpline that would provide an entry point to the wide range of services which are already available but parents may not be aware of. The helpline might, for example, offer a “triage” conversation to help parents identify their priority issues and obstacles and then advise on how and where to get support on them. The web portal would provide a framework to help co-ordinate the wide variety of online services already available, ranging from interactive advice and support from experts to forums where parents can talk to others in the same situation to share learning and information. The steering group will also consider how best to co-ordinate face-to-face local services to offer help and support. We will also look to test which interventions are most effective in helping parents overcome any obstacles to collaboration. This will be critical in helping us to decide where best to direct funding.

Amendment 113D would appear to create a period within which the prospect of an application being made to the statutory service against the non-resident parent would act as a stimulus to the NRP to engage in conversation with the commission. The conversation would encourage the NRP to consider taking action towards a family-based arrangement. This is a welcome intention, but one drawback is that it would impose a delay on processing the application where there was no prospect of a family-based arrangement, which in turn would delay the flow of maintenance. The Government’s view is that it is preferable to get parents talking at an earlier stage in the separation process to maximise the chances of them acting collaboratively and to provide them with access to services that will help them overcome any barriers to doing this.

The commission also has the objective of promoting financial responsibility. It should not be only the threat of an application to the statutory service that forces non-resident parents to be mindful of their obligations. The commission will continue to work to produce the cultural change outlined in the Green Paper so that the statutory service is the last resort rather than the default option. This will not happen overnight but this rebalancing of approach away from state intervention to parental collaboration must be the right approach.

Amendment 113F would exempt existing CSA clients from the need to take reasonable steps before applying to the new statutory scheme. It is just as important that these parents consider the possibility of reaching a family-based arrangement as parents entering the child maintenance system for the first time, particularly as they will be treated as if they are making a fresh application. Research tells us that 51 per cent of CSA parents with care feel that they would be likely or very likely to make a family-based arrangement were they to receive the right help and support. In addition, many CSA clients were compelled to apply to the CSA as a condition of applying for benefit.

Therefore, it is surely right to give CSA client parents who feel that they can make an arrangement and who may have been required to use the CSA the scope to consider whether a family-based arrangement could work for them. I challenge the view that the only way to have an effective arrangement is to have the state manage it. That approach has been shown not to work. Our proposals will provide more support for family-based arrangements and more options for reaching effective arrangements.

My noble friend Lord Kirkwood asked about the costs of transition, which will be effected over a three-year period. Estimates of cost will accompany consultation on the regulations covering case closure and charging, which will set out the spending profiles. The policy has not been finalised, so costs have not yet been firmed up.

In the context of Amendment 113D, my noble friend Lady Tyler referred to there being no charge on the NRP, to which I will turn when we deal with the next group. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked how the gateway is different from options. The conversation is basically the same. The difference is that we would expect applicants to have the options conversation before applying to the statutory service. At present, they go straight to the CSA. Earlier, I mentioned that we want to make the statutory service more effective. He also asked whether there is capacity to cope with case closure and how support will be structured. Yes, there are no concerns about capacity and support will be structured along similar lines as CM options.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, also asked whether the same fee structure would be applied generally and, if not, what it will be. There will be one application charge only. He asked whether there would be an appeals process, if I understood him correctly. I think there is no need for an appeals service because the gateway is simply a phone call. He asked whether, if access is denied, an individual can apply again. Yes, they can. He asked how soon they can get on the statutory scheme. The answer is immediately. He asked whether both parents need to interact with the gateway. No, it requires just one telephone call, which generally is from the parent with care but both parents are free to seek advice.

With that rather lengthy response, I hope that I can persuade the noble Lord not to press his amendment.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

I am sure that the Minister wants the Committee to make progress. I have to confess that I am disappointed that we have not been able to get a quantification of the costs for the maintenance and support system to which the Minister referred. If I have understood what he said— I will read his words carefully tomorrow, as I am sure we all will, and I am grateful for his reply—it looks to me as if we are going to get to Report stage and the later stages not knowing what investment and what timescale we will be dealing with in terms of the proposed support systems in this new iteration of the Child Support Agency. We still do not know whether the families and relationships funding scheme from the Department for Education will be replaced in 2013. That involves a substantial sum of money, £30 million. If we do not get at least £30 million and then some, it could be construed as an effective cut.

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[Lord Newton of Braintree]

My Lords, I know other noble Lords have attached their name to this amendment but I crave the indulgence of the Committee for a few minutes. As my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay said, we were in cahoots on this 20 years ago. We are in cahoots on it today and I support him totally in what he has said and what he is proposing.

At one stage I thought it was a pity that this group of amendments had not been placed with the next group. I did not agree with everything that was said on the previous group, but I do not have the courage to say who I disagreed with and so I will keep my head down on that. I should like the Minister to explain to me sometime—not tonight—the overarching coalition philosophy that links the Public Bodies Bill proposition that Ministers should take all decisions and the NHS Bill philosophy which says that Ministers should take no decisions. He can think about that and come back to me at his leisure—which might be in about three years’ time.

I, too, am grateful to Gingerbread for some helpful briefing. I wish to cover some historical points, one of which indicates that I have some sympathy with one of the noble Baronesses facing me—namely, the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock. My noble and learned friend has used characteristically more emollient language than I, but the original CSA proposals were made difficult by two things: one was that the Treasury wanted too much money out of it too soon; the second—and there have been echoes of this in the discussions today—was that the political classes, and I include myself in that, did not understand what they were dealing with.

There are four people in this Room who are former MPs—one of whom is in a Trappist position because she is the Deputy Chairman—my noble friend the former Member for the Cities of London and Westminster; my noble friend the former Member for—I forget what it was called but it was the Borders.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

Roxburgh and Berwickshire.

[Lord Newton of Braintree]

Right.

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Secondly, will he explain—I am happy if he writes to me before Report—what parents with care will have to do, show or prove to obtain an exemption? Finally, will he explain why an exemption will be from the initial charge only and not from the charge for using the collection service? Having said all that, I hope very much that this is not necessary and that the considerable wisdom expressed around this Committee prevails.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

My Lords, just for completeness I shall speak to Amendment 113E. I will be grateful if the Minister will respond to the prospect of, if everything else fails, having a waiver system for low-income families facing some of these fees. I want to know whether the Government have thought about this carefully and looked at the operational and other implementation arrangements that might be necessary. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield]

My Lords, I would like briefly to add a few comments to those that have been made so powerfully around this Committee. We have heard some moving quotes today, but the one I want to give is not from someone who has been part of this process as an end user but from Sir David Henshaw who, back in 2006, came up with the report that is often cited as being the genesis of the idea of charging. We have heard his name referred to on a number of occasions as his policy has been explained. Sir David Henshaw himself recognised the limits to charging when he said:

“I do not want to create a disincentive to use the service for those parents who have no other option for agreeing maintenance”.

We know, because DWP estimates tell us, that about half of all eligible families have no child maintenance arrangements at all. The danger is that even more children in poorer families will go without child maintenance as a result of the proposal to charge the parent with care. This is my final point, which I want to link to the one I made on the previous group of amendments. Not only will the children be worse off—we have heard some graphic and moving accounts of the real hardship that some children could be in—but more will grow up without a role model of a father who contributes, however modestly, to the cost of raising his own children.

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Moved by

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

113G: Clause 132, page 101, line 38, at end insert—
“(c) the non-resident parent has not agreed to collection arrangements by the Commission under subsection (2A)(a), but has subsequently failed to make full payment of any maintenance due to the parent with care by the date it was due to be paid.(2B) Where subsection (2A)(c) applies, the Commission shall forthwith (and within no more than seven days from the date of notification of non-payment by the parent with care) make arrangements under subsection (2)(a) for the collection of the child support maintenance payable.”

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

My Lords, I still have the will and resolve to continue. Amendment 113G seeks to get fast access to the collection service when the non-resident parent fails to pay. I have a series of questions, which I hope the Minister will help us with, about what happens in these circumstances—they are clearly set out in the amendment—if the non-resident parent fails to pay. The suggestion is that the statutory system would kick in within a seven-day period. I think the Government accept that there could be a gap if that situation was not addressed with dispatch. Seven days might be too high a target to set by way of getting a quick response. Certainly there is concern that a gap, which could be as much as a month, would have a serious impact on the family’s circumstances. Indeed, the Work and Pensions Select Committee noted that,

“unpaid maintenance or late payments can have a devastating impact on parents with care and the wellbeing of their children”.

This amendment tries to identify the fact that there is a gap and tries to get the Government to think about ways of resolving it in order to protect children’s welfare.

I have three basic questions. How quickly does the Minister think that the commission will intervene in these circumstances? What verification of non-payment will they require, which is an important question? Finally, how will disputes be resolved where the non-resident parent argues that payment was made? They are not of the same order as the amendments with which we dealt earlier but it would give some assurance to colleagues if the Minister can say what the Government plan to do in these circumstances. I beg to move.

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[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, turning first to my noble friend’s Amendment 113G, the Government are determined to ensure that non-resident parents meet their child maintenance responsibilities. That is why we have already committed to bring cases into the collection service as soon as we have evidence that payment has not been made through maintenance direct. Where a parent with care informs us that payment has not been received and the non-resident parent is unable to provide evidence to the contrary, such as a bank statement showing credits to the parent with care’s account, we will swiftly move the case in to the collection service and act quickly to ensure payment is reinstated.

This could include the use of enforcement tools where necessary, such as deduction from earnings orders, where maintenance is deducted directly from an employed non-resident parent’s earnings, and deduction orders, which enable deductions to be made directly from a non-resident parent’s bank account. Where the parent with care alleges that further payments have been missed during the maintenance direct period and there is no evidence to the contrary, we will ensure that these arrears are also paid when we bring the case into the collection service. It is unacceptable for non-resident parents to neglect their child maintenance responsibilities and build up arrears, which the Government are determined to tackle. To that end we will take a more robust approach to collection and enforcement in the new scheme and will use all avenues available to us to ensure outstanding arrears are paid and new arrears are not allowed to accrue.

We will not give up on cases. Following the introduction of the new scheme, the commission will continue to pursue non-resident parents for any arrears of maintenance that they may owe, which will include arrears from the schemes currently in operation. Where arrears have been accrued prior to the introduction of charging, no charges will be payable by either party in relation to these amounts.

On victims of domestic violence, as raised under Amendment 113H, let me put it on the record that we are committed to ensuring that victims are protected. They will be fast tracked into the statutory scheme; they will not be expected to make a family-based arrangement; and will not be required pay an application charge. Clause 132 provides non-resident parents with the ability to choose to pay their child support maintenance by maintenance direct within the statutory scheme. When designing this provision we considered carefully how to protect victims of domestic violence. Therefore, we will provide a service to enable direct payments between the parties without the need for any direct contact to be made or any personal information to be disclosed. This will be known as the payment support service. We will also provide appropriate support to help clients to use this service effectively where necessary.

We believe that the provision of this service and the support we will provide to clients in using it will ensure that victims of domestic violence are able to use maintenance direct safely, without any risk of harm to the parent with care or the child. As I have explained, as soon as we have evidence that payment has not been received we will bring the case into the collection service and take appropriate action to re-establish payment. With that explanation, I hope that my noble friend will agree not to press his amendment.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

Perhaps my noble friend will expand on one detail. The amendment seeks an expeditious response within a seven-day period whereas the Government seem to be working to a four-week response time. Is there any way in which I can persuade the Minister to think about at least setting some targets? A month is a long time in a challenged household. It is a gap that we have identified and it will exist. These things will happen. I might be being too ambitious with seven days but my noble friend is being very complacent if he is sticking to 28 days.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

I shall be brief. I have a question that we should have asked on the previous group of amendments. What moneys do the Government expect to collect as a result of the £100 fee?

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[Lord De Mauley]

Given what I said in the debate on charging, I would prefer to write to the noble Baroness about that in due course.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

I am grateful to my noble friend for the offer of a letter and I am happy to withdraw the amendment on that basis.

Amendment 113G withdrawn.