Child Support Agency
Debate between Sheryll Murray and Mike Weir(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Sheryll Murray
I accept what the hon. Lady says, but I am sure that we can do something with the system to ensure that there are not such anomalies and long-standing cases. It has been 14 years and there is still no conclusive result. The situation needs to be addressed.
I must express my concern that in such circumstances, the only option left open to parents with care is variation mechanisms, such as lifestyle inconsistency tribunals, and the Government have announced their intention to scrap them. If the last line of defence for parents with care is removed, what hope is there for justice to be done and for children to get the money they are owed? Some non-resident parents are engaged in practices that, if this were income tax and not child maintenance, would be seen as tax evasion. I urge the Government to think again and ensure that parents with care have adequate opportunities to appeal against obviously perverse CSA assessments.
In another constituency case, the absent parent lives in a caravan, which is not an official registered address. That completely throws the normal process off balance, because the CSA has to send out officials to identify the tenant. In that case, the non-resident parent denied their identity to the CSA and had to be photo-identified by the parent with care. That process has taken months. The CSA should be equipped to deal with unusual situations. The person concerned has asked for face-to-face meetings, but is being ignored. I have even visited the regional CSA centre with my caseworker to discuss long-standing cases—the regional manger of my centre was a classmate of mine from school.
The CSA costs the public £450 million, and a typical case costs the taxpayer £25,000. Reform is desperately needed, but we must be exceptionally careful because botched reforms by the previous Government cost almost £1 billion, left thousands of families in hardship and were deemed one of the greatest public sector disasters of recent times. I am glad that we have a Minister and a Government who understand that reform is necessary and a priority, and that we have learned the lessons from the previous Government’s time in office.
Mr Mike Weir (in the Chair)
Time is marching on. There are four Members left to speak. I recommend trying to keep to seven minutes each.