Child Maintenance Service

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I give my full support to the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) and the Committee, and everything he asks for today. He had the foresight to bring this matter forward after the publication of the NAO report, and is smart enough to follow up and start poking the Government again, to ensure that we can get some changes. This is a serious issue that everybody up and down the country experiences in their postbags.

I am grateful to colleagues for being so kind about the Bill which I introduced. I am committed to changing the law and improving enforcement, but I must give credit to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), who initially introduced the Bill but was then made a Minister, and to the Government for their support under the direction of my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey). Having Government support always makes it easier when trying to force through change. In that respect, it is a big team effort.

I care so much about the CMS because of my work as a family lawyer and because of personal family experience. My dad still stares off into the middle distance when he talks of his experience of the Child Support Agency back in the day, because it was a disaster. The service goes far beyond the impact of putting money in people’s pockets, important as that is, and as much as we are right to focus on the poverty of children. It affects every single child of every demographic caught up in the difficulties of separating parents. If the system does not work for them, parents often have an impact on their children. They do not mean to; it just happens. If a parent has had to spend a whole week fighting with the CMS on trying to get a calculation, and then there is the handover, the kid is caught in the middle of that frosty handover—or worse, if there is shouting and frustration. I cannot emphasise enough the need to get the system working. As colleagues have said, getting it right early on and making early interventions deters others and changes the lives of families.

I want to say a little bit about dads. They really feel under attack whenever we talk about changing the Child Maintenance Service. It is often dads in my surgery who are in tears, because they care deeply about their children. They often have residence of their children and shared care, but the system does not recognise that or has ignored a court order. The round robins and the constant nightmare with correspondence is very damaging, and sadly it is often dads who are taking their own lives or pointing to problems with the CMS.

It is right to recognise that 93% of paying parents in the system are dads. However, we cannot ignore the fact that non-paying parents include dads, and that the liability orders that were sought in the past were sought against dads. I ask all the dads listening to this, when they hear of the push for curfew orders, societal changes and so on, to stay angry. They should not necessarily stay angry with MPs in this room, because they will just join a long list of people who are angry with us, but rather stay angry with the dads who are letting down their kids and not paying, because they poison the well for the good dads who are trying their best.

One of my constituents said that he feels—and colleagues have said this too—that there is an institutional bias in favour of the receiving parent. Even when it is proven that a receiving parent is not being honest or true, the burden of proof is often on the paying parent, and that is causing a huge amount of stress.

I am trying to calculate how much time I have left to speak. In the complex cases that we are trying to fix by tightening up enforcement, parents are seeing the lifestyle of non-paying parents far outstripping their own. The non-paying parents are going abroad and having a lovely time with their new families, but the process of taking evidence of that to the CMS is falling down. A mum wrote to me saying that she was experiencing considerable stress. She was not receiving any money. She was working between 40 and 50 hours a week just to keep her kids clothed, and that meant, because of her work ethic, that she did not qualify for any benefits. However, she could see the non-paying parent treating himself to several luxurious holidays a year to faraway shores. That is hugely detrimental to the children in that family, and we have got—

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

On the hon. Lady’s point about complex cases, some of the most egregious cases which I and other hon. Members have seen in our surgeries involve the paying parent concealing income because they are self-employed, so they are not paying what is owed. One mother came to me who is owed £18,000 in arrears, and I met another who has been fighting for six years for £22,000- worth of payments. The way in which arrears are treated is different from live cases, where a small amount being paid is accepted. Does the hon. Lady agree that we need a full review of how those complex cases are dealt with and reform of the CMS?

[Siobhan Baillie]

One of the biggest issues is that people’s lives are complex—families are complex and blended. We have wonderful ways of living, which must be reflected in how CMS caseworkers are trained, but we also need a bespoke approach to each case, because this is incredibly difficult. I give credit to the CMS; I am always impressed by it and I thoroughly enjoyed working with it to try to make changes, as well as with Lord Younger and Baroness Stedman-Scott, who are amazing parliamentarians who are working really hard.

The National Audit Office says that we are heading for £1 billion-worth of arrears by 2030. When the Child Support Agency had a controlled explosion from 2014 to 2018, the figures were not anywhere near that. The reality of the long wait for decisions, a lack of clarity about maintenance paid, poor communication, unclear calculations, poor service and bad handling is poisoning the well for all families. I urge the Minister to take that strong message back to the Department.

Oral Answers to Questions

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. Those matters are under active consideration.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

T6. Given that the Secretary of State has just said that the continuation of the household support fund after the end of March is up to the Chancellor, and given that, last week, we had the support of all parties in Westminster Hall for the continuation of this vital fund, will he assure the House that the subject is a top priority in his negotiations with the Chancellor?

[Mel Stride]

The specifics of my negotiations with the Treasury remain between me and the Treasury. As I have said, the any of those decisions on the HSF are matters for the Treasury.

Household Support Fund

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) on securing this important debate.

I will focus my remarks on children and the lifeline that the household support fund provides to so many children living in poverty. Many Members will be aware that the Joseph Rowntree Foundation recently published a report that estimated that approximately 1 million children in this country are experiencing destitution. That is 1 million children growing up not knowing the comfort of a warm home or where their next meal will come from. The household support fund has enabled councils, which know their local populations’ needs best, to provide local welfare support to those families who are on the edge. It is vital that that funding continues beyond March.

As we have heard, many councils up and down the country, including my own in Richmond upon Thames, have used the household support fund to ensure that children eligible for free school meals are able to access them in the holidays through vouchers or cash support for families. School holidays are a time of real hardship, and children go hungry. Across London alone, councils are providing school holiday food support to almost half a million children over this academic year.

Richmond is also using money from the household support fund to support looked-after children and care leavers with food and fuel payments. These are some of the most vulnerable children and our young people in our society, and the Government’s welfare system has allowed them to fall through the net. But the household support fund has enabled councils to catch them and ensure they are not left destitute.

The need is growing: Richmond is projecting an overspend in the current round of HSF allocation because of rising need. Demand for support remains at unprecedented levels, and with the Government withdrawing energy bill support, this winter is set to be even tougher for many families.

I am sure the Minister will refer to other measures, such as the uprating of benefits and the local housing allowance, but they do not credibly replace the HSF and will benefit only specific groups. The beauty of HSF is that it affords flexibility to local councils, and the partner organisations they work with, to target support at those who need it. I pay particular tribute to Richmond AID and Citizens Advice Richmond for their work in administering grants.

What will happen come April? We all know that local authorities throughout the country have finances that are in an extremely precarious state—indeed, many local authorities are on the brink of bankruptcy. There is no alternative funding stream. The reality is that without the HSF, councils will be forced to make difficult decisions about what essential support to families in greatest need they will have to cut. Once again, children and young people are in the firing line, so I implore the Minister to make the case to the Chancellor to extend this lifeline to our most vulnerable constituents.

Cost of Living: Parental Leave and Pay

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 617155, relating to the cost of living and parental leave and pay.

It is a real pleasure to have you in the Chair, Mr McCabe. The petition asks the Government to

“Increase statutory maternity pay in line with cost of living crisis.”

I am sorry that this debate unfortunately coincides with events in the main Chamber that are taking the attention of an awful lot of Members as they debate the Privileges Committee’s report on the former Prime Minister. The situation does rather highlight how important matters that concern the people we represent do not get the attention they need in this place or in Government because of the issues that are being debated today.

This very important petition also asks the Government to

“Review statutory maternity pay in line with inflation and cost of living.”

It notes that the

“cost of living has been increasing across the UK since early 2021”

and that the impact of inflation on

“the affordability of goods and services for households”

has been significant.

Raising a child is a gift. I am fortunate to know from experience the joy of being a parent, just as I also know the many challenges that parenthood can throw up. I want to outline, on behalf of the petitioners who brought it to our attention in Parliament, the fact that the gift of parenthood is being eclipsed for many by the mire of spreadsheets, cost cutting and the damaging health effects of the cost of living, which has shot up over the past year or so.

The petition’s creator Nicola Sheridan, who is here with us today, counts herself very fortunate. She is a meticulously organised professional who made many plans in advance of having her baby. She looked at the many costs and saved up for a safety net so that she could take a full year away with her son Harry. But while she was following the news during her pregnancy, that first year of their life together, which she had so carefully planned, was continually thrown into doubt by soaring costs. Excitement was replaced by fear and anxiety. I am grateful to Nicola for sharing her experience of the spiralling costs that many parents face, as I know having heard from them ahead of this debate.

Nicola’s experience is far from unique. The number of signatories to the petition indicates that there are many parents who have either experienced the same level of anxiety or share the same concerns. Charities and campaign groups have also been campaigning on the issue, and understandably so. I am grateful to Pregnant Then Screwed, Maternity Action and the Institute of Health Visiting. When I met them prior to this debate, they impressed on me the stresses that parents are feeling; I will expand on that point in more detail later in my speech. Alison Woodhead and Katharine Slocombe from Adoption UK shared the distinct pressures that adoptive parents face. Dr Alain Gregoire from the Maternal Mental Health Alliance set out clearly the scientific case for early years investment. The Child Poverty Action Group stressed that inequality has worsened and is being embedded by a lack of support for low-income parents. From all the people I heard from, one message was resoundingly clear: failing to adequately support new parents in the face of the worst cost of living crisis for generations will have profoundly damaging consequences for parents and children in both the short and the long term.

The headline inflation figure remains stubbornly high at 8.7%, after a peak of 11.1% last October, but inflation is only half the story. It has been concentrated in the fundamentals that new parents rely on: heat, food and personal care goods. The spiralling cost of energy has been widely reported, and has outsized food inflation, which rose to 19.2% in April this year. What has received less attention is the startling rise in goods essential for looking after a newborn. Since March 2021, the cost of formula milk has risen by 24%, with the cheapest own brand option increasing by 45%. Last year, in the 12 weeks to 19 August, the price of Pampers rocketed by up to 60%.

Meanwhile, statutory maternity pay, statutory paternity pay and maternity allowance have risen by 10.4%. It is not hard to do the maths. There are two primary concerns about how the uplift is calculated and administered. First, the uplift comes in only once a year and uses the consumer prices index from the six months before. As a result, by design, the money that new parents receive from the Government will be out of step with what they actually need. Secondly, many feel that the financial support for new parents is simply not enough anyway. The current statutory rate for parents is £172.48. Compare that with the minimum wage for an average 37.5-hour week, which comes in at £390.20. When the added costs of a new child—cots, prams, clothes, food and formula—are considered, many parents are left with big holes in their budget.

The support for parents is not generous at the best of times. The UK has one of the least generous support programmes for new mothers among OECD countries, with only Ireland and the USA offering less. Add a near-unprecedented cost of living situation to that state of affairs, and we are not far off a crisis. I know that it is easy to slip into a jumble of numbers when discussing the cost of living crisis, so I will focus on the reality for parents, especially mothers, on the ground. We know that women still provide the majority of childcare, and significantly more than men. When we talk about the impact of the cost of living on parents, we absolutely must include fathers in that, but we have to focus on the stress and strain of raising a baby, which is often borne by mothers.

While preparing for the debate, I spoke to a group of really inspiring and strong mothers from Newcastle, alongside the charity Children North East. The reality of modern motherhood that they painted was fraught with challenges. Stress was a recurrent theme, as mothers described the anxiety that rampant inflation is causing them. It is making budgeting almost impossible. Mothers dismiss the Government’s promise of free childcare as a myth, as cost pressures are forcing nurseries to charge for nappies and food, and the number of hours and weeks covered by the Government’s scheme does not match working reality. For those mothers, labelling it as free feels rather like an insult.

One mother spoke vividly of being a new mother as

“one of the most challenging moments in your life”.

Her overarching view was that

“it’s just so stressful—everything is new, your hormones are all over the place”.

Even if you do make a plan, the stress can be overwhelming. She said that

“we are going to end up with a mental health crisis and we’re going to ask why.”

That is even before she has factored in the struggles with budgeting. Add the impact of being a new mother, on top of wondering whether you can even afford formula for your baby, and the stresses and strains that new parents are under become very clear.

Soaring prices and a lack of support are leaving mothers on the brink. I fear that the Government just do not get the reality for new mothers on low household incomes. The Government’s response to the petition justified current statutory pay levels, saying that they are

“higher than the level of other out of work benefits”.

That line rankled with many mothers, and not without cause. Being a mother, especially a new mother, is far from being out of work. Motherhood is work. One mother told me that

“it’s the hardest thing that you’ll ever do in your life”.

You are left alone, weakened after often traumatic childbirth with a tiny person you are entirely responsible for keeping safe and nurturing. Waking up throughout the night to feed them, breastfeeding, changing nappies, playing games, placating them when you have no idea what is wrong—the Government would do well to stop calling that being out of work.

For many prospective mothers, fathers and adopters, the joy of adopting and welcoming a child has been subsumed by anxiety stemming from financial concerns. Paired with this, the tightening of budgets leads parents to spend less on heating and less on healthy food, which affects their mental and physical health as well as the mental and physical health of their child.

In preparation for this debate, the Petitions Committee conducted a survey of petitioners, made up largely of current parents and prospective parents. Some 93% of new parents who responded thought that Government support was inadequate, and a staggering 89% of new parents recorded difficulty in accessing basic equipment like a pram. Faced with such crippling financial hardship, mothers are missing meals, going without heating and cutting down on all spending on themselves. One parent told us that

“the lack of financial support is a constant stress and worry”,

while 92% of parents reported financial difficulties in accessing social activities as basic as visiting family and friends. It is difficult to overstate the importance of these social activities. Raising a child is a full-time job and can be incredibly isolating; moments of happiness can be interspersed with periods of profound loneliness, stress and vulnerability. Family and friends provide that vital relief and support. Taking away a mother’s ability even to visit people can prove overwhelming.

Some 97% of new parents who responded to our survey were concerned about the impact on their mental health of having a child. We are already seeing a decline in parents’ mental health. In January, the Institute of Health Visiting found that 83% of health visitors reported an increase in perinatal mental illness. We must be clear that financial and mental stress also have a direct impact on children. Dr Alain Gregoire, who has studied the impact of early adversity on children, has found that from the moment of conception onwards, poor maternal mental health has an impact on babies, leading to worse outcomes across health, educational attainment and happiness later in life. The stakes are incredibly high, and we are storing up problems for the future if we do not address this. Any Government who look at the evidence have to conclude that early years support for parents and children must be a priority.

It will be little surprise to Members that the cost of living is having a disproportionately large impact on the poorest mothers and babies in our society. We already know that inequalities lie at the root of poorer outcomes for pregnant women and infants, but these are now being compounded by the cost of living crisis. Some 91% of health visitors have observed an increase in poverty affecting families, alongside an increase in families needing food banks.

I have spoken before in this place about the impact of poverty on child development; it is a big issue in my region, and the number of children growing up in poverty is staggeringly high. But it is a vital point and is worth repeating: poverty leads to worse educational attainment, worse physical health, worse employment prospects and worse life expectancy. Poverty even leads to a higher risk of neonatal death.

These outcomes cannot simply be accepted. The Government have a responsibility to act. For example, Healthy Start vouchers are an important lifeline for struggling parents, allowing them to access nutritious food that we know is vital for child development. After the digitalisation of the scheme, take-up was more than 10% short of the Government’s own rather modest target of 75% in March, yet there is no clear plan to improve the uptake. It is well within the Government’s scope to change that. I hope that the Minister will respond specifically to that point.

Furthermore, as Pregnant Then Screwed and others have pointed out, the UK has one of the most complicated parental pay systems among developed countries, resulting in many parents missing out on the support that they are entitled to. Difficulty in accessing Government support is particularly acute for adoptive parents: they are not entitled to the same support as other parents, and self-employed adopters have no statutory right whatsoever to parental pay, so even when support exists, access is clouded in uncertainty. Self-employed adoptive parents can apply to local authorities for grants, but whether that money is given or withheld is entirely discretionary. The all-party parliamentary group for adoption and permanence has found that 90% of adopters said that their social worker had failed to advise them to apply directly to their local authority, so even those who are working in this field cannot work out the system.

Adopted children are already especially likely to have specific and costly needs that can take a significant financial toll on adoptive parents, and the cost of living is making the situation worse. Nine out of 10 prospective adopters told Adoption UK that the cost of living is having an impact on whether they choose to adopt. Of course it is. This is the impact of the cost of living: the children most in need of loving and supportive families are being left in homes and in foster care. Government inaction has meant that a child’s start in life could be determined by nothing more than their postcode. The next generation will be defined permanently by today’s inequality if we do not take action.

I have heard from a mother who spent most of her time applying for the support available worrying that she was getting it wrong. She was so nervous about having it clawed back that she cut her access to some of those support payments. Even when parents are entitled to support, the lack of clarity and the complexity in the system cause great anxiety for parents, on top of the sleepless nights looking after their children. It is probably the sleepless nights that are inducing the anxiety. It is a vicious cycle for many parents.

Inequality becomes embedded early and is self-fulfilling. Intervention at the earliest possible stage is our best defence against it. The earlier the intervention, the earlier the rolling snowball of inequality is halted. Money today will have drastic positive benefits further down the road. It is not just wishful thinking; game-changing early investment has happened before and could work again. Sure Start, introduced by the last Labour Government, led to around 13,000 fewer hospital admissions in older children each year, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. At a time when our NHS is severely overburdened, the case for early intervention could not be stronger.

The next Labour Government will introduce free breakfast clubs for all primary schoolchildren, a vital investment that will ensure children have access to healthy food and have a full stomach so that they are ready to learn. Let us remember that many parents who have taken time out to have a baby will often have older children they are trying to feed as well. This is the kind of investment in the future that we will see after many years of inequality.

We know that in the earlier stages of life, time spent with parents is vital for children. What is more, parents want to spend time with their children. Research by the Trades Union Congress found that one in five dads are forgoing all paternity leave because of financial concerns, while mothers are being hurried back into work because statutory pay simply does not go far enough.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent and powerful speech. Does she agree that with statutory paternity and maternity pay levels so low, at less than half of full-time pay at minimum wage, parents are not being given any choice? Choice is so important. As she says, research shows that in the early days of a baby’s life, having a parent at home, whether it is the mother or the father, is critical. Given the cost of living crisis in which people are struggling with mortgages and soaring food prices, people just cannot afford to take the option of staying at home. They are being forced back to work before they want to go back.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I absolutely agree. The hon. Lady raises the dreaded mortgages issue, which I have not even touched on, but that is a cliff edge looming for many families, if they have not already gone over it.

One of the mothers we spoke to told the Petitions Committee survey:

“I and many other women felt they had to go back to work at 6 months because it wasn’t possible to continue”.

No mother should have to go back to work for any other reason than that it is right for them and their family, and right for them in their career. If they want to stay off work for the full statutory entitlement, that should be their choice, as the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) rightly pointed out.

Those first months with a newborn are irreplaceable—you never get that time back—yet unsupported parents are being left with no choice. That is the key point. Some mothers may want to go back much earlier, and that is their choice, but the difficulty is that for parents who want to stay off for longer, their choice is often taken away by the reality of soaring prices and a shortfall in support. Mothers are being stranded in an impossible situation, completely torn in two by their work and their childcare responsibilities, and many parents who go back are finding how unaffordable it is because of the soaring costs of childcare. For so long, the motherhood penalty has suppressed mothers’ earning power and independence. That short period of time when they have a small child at home can affect their earnings for the rest of their career and life.

Several mothers in Newcastle spoke to me about the isolating impact of fathers being required to return to work, unable to take the parental leave that many mothers would love to see them take. One mother even said:

“As a Mam, when you’re left on your own after 2 weeks it’s terrifying.”

I remember that feeling. Another described the claustrophobia of being left with her children day in, day out without respite. She said:

“You see your husband going out the door to work and you want to race out the door with him.”

Frightened and alone, new mothers are being let down. A broken childcare system, fathers feeling as if they are unable to take leave, and the negative mental and physical health impacts of raising a child, amplified by the cost of living, are confining women back to their homes. The gender inequality that we should have left in the distant past is creeping back into our lives, and it feels as if the Government are asleep at the wheel.

[Munira Wilson]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way again; she is being very generous. I am passionate about the question of fathers, because in families up and down the country, including my own, fathers are taking the primary responsibility for looking after children. I am proud that it was the Liberal Democrats in government who introduced shared parental leave in 2015, but sadly the take-up has been far too low. We need to build on that by improving pay. We should make parental leave for all mothers and fathers, whether they are employed or self-employed, a day one right. Does the hon. Lady agree, and does she agree that paternity leave should also be increased from the short period of two weeks? On average, it is about 10.4 weeks across advanced economies.

[Catherine McKinnell]

The hon. Lady speaks very passionately about the impact of parental leave. I am not here to make policy for either the Government or Labour’s Front-Bench team; I will leave that to the two Front Benchers who are here to speak on behalf of the main parties. But I can speak for the petitioners. One mother who spoke to me said that increased paternity pay and leave would be

“the dream, it would have stopped it being all on me.”

I think that quite often the petitioners, who have brought us all here today, say it better than many of us could.

The Petitions Committee has previously highlighted the further action that must be taken to protect expectant and new parents from redundancy, by making it illegal from the moment employers are notified to six months after maternity leave is over. We are proud of the work we have done to see some of those changes in Government.

I want to ask the Minister a few questions about the issues that I have raised; I am sure she has been scribbling notes already. Will she commit to reviewing the way in which statutory maternity pay, statutory paternity pay and maternity allowance are calculated, so that the pay better reflects the rate of actual inflation and so that the money that parents are getting is not diminishing before their eyes? That seems to be the source of a huge amount of anxiety, as I am sure the Government appreciate.

What is the Minister doing to ensure that every mother knows the support that they are entitled to? Too often, parents seem to lack the information necessary, or they are given incorrect information and miss out on vital support. Will the Minister consider equalising access to statutory parental pay for adoptive parents, including those who are self-employed? Can the Minister account for why the take-up of Healthy Start vouchers remains below Government targets? What are the Government doing to improve that? It is within their gift to do so.

Finally, what recent assessment have the Government made of the impact of maternity pay rates on social health outcomes for new mothers and babies? It is important that we monitor what can be assessed, and outcomes for children can be clearly assessed in age two developmental assessments. Sadly, indications are that they are getting worse, not better. The petitioners would certainly indicate that improving support for new parents would improve outcomes in those age two development assessments.

The status quo does not need to be permanent. Yes, we are in a cost of living crisis, but we can change it. We can change it for the youngest people in our society to ensure that it does not have long-term negative consequences, but that requires the Government to listen to the concerns raised by petitioners and take action. It is a complex issue, and a multitude of stakeholders will be engaged in it. However, at its core is that profoundly important experience of raising a child. If our society allows having a child to become unaffordable, fewer people will choose to have children. One new parent told us:

“Having children in 2023 is no longer a choice you make with your partner, it’s a calculation on a spreadsheet”.

That is the cold reality of modern parenting in the UK. Western societies are existentially threatened by ageing populations, falling birth rates and the need to pay pensions, yet our Government are standing by while this car crash happens in slow motion. The cost of living crisis has shined a sharper light on a situation that was already becoming untenable.

To return to Nicola, the petition’s creator, it is a broken system when even the best prepared mothers feel that they have no option but to create a petition to get the Government to listen and do something. Through no fault of their own, children today are being born into precarity rather than stable, financially secure homes, with parents burned out by stress and isolated by incomes shrinking relative to inflation.

I urge the Government to look seriously at what can be done for new parents, whether that is following up on the recommendations of petitioners by linking statutory pay to the cost of living, by expanding paternity leave or by ensuring that more support is available for new parents in other ways. One thing is clear from the plethora of evidence I have taken ahead of this debate: doing nothing is not an option.

Child Maintenance Services

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered potential improvements to child maintenance services.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I am very grateful for being granted the time to shed light on the Child Maintenance Service, which I will refer to as the CMS, not least because I, along with the help of colleagues, set up a new all-party parliamentary group on this issue in October last year, and because the Government have published an important review this morning, which I will come to shortly. I want to put on the record my thanks to organisations such as Gingerbread, One Parent Families Scotland, Refuge, Women’s Aid and Surviving Economic Abuse, which have taken the time to educate the APPG on this issue. I also thank the brave constituents from all over the UK who have shared their experiences with us.

To put it plainly, I am afraid that the CMS is not working. It is failing receiving parents, paying parents and survivors of domestic abuse, but, most of all, it is failing children. Roughly 120,000 children in the UK receive no maintenance, and a high number receive a meagre portion of what they are entitled to. Since launching the APPG, we have received floods of correspondence from people who do not know which way to turn. I put it to you, Mr Twigg, that the CMS is broken, and we MPs cannot make it work on an individual case-by-case basis. I believe it is time for a complete overhaul of the service.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. He started by rightly pointing out the many cases that cross constituency MPs’ desks, and our caseworkers have to deal with very sensitive and difficult cases, the vast majority of which involve mothers. I have had a terrible case of a mother tirelessly pursuing her ex-husband to pay up for nine years, and he has found every which way to game the system. I have also heard from a father who has erroneously paid £18,000 of arrears, despite having evidence from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs that he was not earning money during the period for which he has been charged. Does that not show the complete incompetence of the CMS? It needs to be able to work with HMRC and communicate clearly with parents, but it also needs to have the teeth to take enforcement action where parents are not paying up.

[Jamie Stone]

My hon. Friend makes some very valid points indeed. Perhaps I should also pay tribute to the staff in my own office, and in the offices of all other MPs, who do fantastic, challenging and difficult work. It is very stressful for the staff members involved, so I pay tribute to them.

I want to focus on the ways in which the CMS can better support survivors of domestic abuse and safeguard receiving parents and their children from falling into poverty. It is quite clear that the CMS is not specialised or tailored to support survivors of domestic and economic abuse, so we in the APPG are glad to hear that the Government plan to use Dr Samantha Callan’s recommendations to introduce new domestic abuse training for CMS caseworkers, which will be delivered by a third-party external agency rather than in-house, as set out in the review published this morning, for which I thank His Majesty’s Government. However, our concern is that this does not go far enough. The training should be delivered by a specialist organisation, such as any of the organisations I have already thanked.

I am also glad to hear that the Government plan to protect survivors from having direct contact with abusive ex-partners when trying to obtain child maintenance payments, by giving them the choice to be moved on to collect and pay, the system by which the CMS collects a payment from the paying parent and pays it to the receiving parent without either party having to make direct contact, allowing claims to be made safely. That is an important point.

I understand that the system is more costly for the Government, but we strongly urge that these charges to the paying and receiving parents—20% and 4% respectively —are dropped for survivors of domestic abuse. The charges exacerbate already abusive relationships; they make them worse. Abolishing them would also be a simple way to safeguard against further refusal to make payments.

When it comes to safeguarding receiving parents from falling below the poverty line, I support the call for the CMS to make mandatory minimum payments to survivor receiving parents and to chase the paying parents themselves. This would take the burden of feeling forced to make direct contact away from the survivor and protect them from potential financial ruin. Given the historic failure of the CMS to enforce payments from perpetrators of economic abuse and the current cost of living crisis, we believe that the Government should seriously consider this recommendation.

Many of the problems come down to a fundamental breakdown of communication between the Department for Work and Pensions, and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Perpetrators of economic abuse are able to get away with declaring no income if they are self-employed or a business-owner, therefore escaping the obligation to pay maintenance; this will be a situation familiar to Members of this House from all parties. The perpetrators are also able to avoid payments as the CMS has no legal enforcement capability, despite child maintenance being a legal obligation.

The Public Accounts Committee found that unpaid maintenance owed to parents on collect and pay to distribute payments is set to rise to £1 billion by March 2031. Can you believe that? The review by the National Audit Office in March 2022 stated that the work of the CMS has

“not, so far, increased the number of effective child maintenance arrangements across society.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 11th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

What recent assessment she has made of the potential merits of increasing carer’s allowance.

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Justin Tomlinson)]

The Government recognise and appreciate the vital role played by unpaid carers now more than ever. We have already made changes to the carer’s allowance rules to reflect changes to patterns of care during the current emergency. Since 2010, the rate of carer’s allowance has increased from £53.90 to £67.25 a week, meaning nearly an additional £700 a year for carers.

[Munira Wilson [V]]

My constituent, Natalie Hay, is a full-time unpaid carer for her son, who has Lyme disease and ME. She is entitled to that paltry £67 per week as long as she does not earn any more than £128 per week, but with the pandemic, she is having to shield her son and home-school two children and has lost all respite care and additional support, so a few hours’ paid work is out of the question. She feels completely forgotten about by the Government. Does the Minister think it is possible to live on the equivalent of £1.91 per hour, and will he commit—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sorry, but that question was far too long.