Child Maintenance Service: Payment Recovery from Absent Parents Debate
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Melanie Onn
Main Page: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)Department Debates - View all Melanie Onn's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
Child Maintenance Service: Payment Recovery from Absent Parents
Melanie Onn Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) on securing this important debate. It is important that the adults on both sides recognise that the money that is reclaimed through the CMS is not for the parents; it is for the child or the children. The breakdown of a relationship can be incredibly difficult; it can be rather tempestuous and emotions can run high. However, it should always be remembered that the money is not going to the other parent who is taking principal responsibility for the care of the child; it is for the child’s benefit.
There have been long-standing problems with the transfer from the CSA to the CMS. People have been chased for debt that does not exist. My office has had to contact the CMS about money that has already been paid. The CMS is wasting its time and energies chasing debts that it should not be, and it should undertake its responsibilities to investigate seriously what individuals say to them.
On non-payments, constituents raise the issue of having no communication at all from the CMS and, again, it takes the involvement of my office to get any kind of resolution. It is striking that we do get a resolution, which makes me very aware that there is something going wrong in the system.
I also want to touch on reductions in salary. It seems from the examples we have heard that if someone has the financial flexibility, clout and wherewithal, they are able to hide their money. They are able to hide their funds, and it becomes incredibly difficult. If they are self-employed, they can put all the money into a company—the company can be in the name of a new spouse, for example—in order to pay for household bills and to live a more comfortable lifestyle and not necessarily pay what is owed.
The situation is different for those who are on lower salaries, who are taking their responsibilities seriously and who want to pay for their children, in the event that they are ill and they lose money. Because they are paid on a weekly basis, their salary has to go down by 25% for them to get any kind of reduction in the amount of child maintenance they are paying.
I have had people come to see me in tears because their illness has meant that they have been unable to work or they have had a serious reduction in their salary, and they have a new life and a new family who they have to pay rent for, and then they are unable to pay the money to the CMS. They are put into debt and financial hardship and then, when they are earning again, 40% of their salary is taken off them. It leaves them in a dire situation, wondering why they are bothering to work when they could be in the benefits system. I do not think that we should have a Government-sponsored system that encourages people to look to the benefits system as a way out.