Child Support Agency (Hansard, 6 December 1993)

10. Mr. Alan W. Williams
To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will conduct an urgent review into the operation of the Child Support Agency.

§ Mr. Lilley
I have always made it clear that we will be keeping the policy under review. We are looking at the comments and concerns raised and testing them against the 10 basic principles of the new scheme, which were endorsed by members of all parties. If, after examination, we think that we can make the scheme better still, we will do so.

Mr. Williams
Will the Secretary of State confirm that the Child Support Agency is expected to raise £550 million in this financial year and that, of that total, only £50 million will go to help support children? Will he tell us what the agency is really for? Is it simply to help the Treasury, or does it have a role in supporting children?

§ Mr. Lilley
The purpose of the agency is twofold—first, to ensure that both parents accept responsibility for maintaining their children and, secondly, that the taxpayer should contribute only if parents do not have the resources to maintain their children. I was glad that that principle was endorsed by the Select Committee on Social Security in its report published earlier today.

§ Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman
Paragraph?

§ Mr. Lilley
Eighteen again. The report states: The Committee believes that taxpayers have for too long been asked, in effect, to pick up maintenance bills that should have been met by absent parents.

§ Mr. Cash
Will my right hon. Friend note that half the questions asked today have been related to the Child Support Agency? We are delighted to hear that he is suggesting that the whole matter could be reviewed in the light of what the Select Committee said today and because of the common-sense practical approach that he takes to such matters. I have come across a number of serious problems in my constituency. I am absolutely convinced that the 60 or so people who came to see me the other day are not inventing the difficulties about which they told me and I urge my right hon. Friend to look carefully at the representations that he has received and, if necessary, to make the appropriate adjustments to the statutory formula, to ensure that the agency works as intended in line with the principles on which we all agree.

§ Mr. Lilley
I am glad that, like most hon. Members, my hon. Friend accepts the principles on which the agency is based. There have, of course, been widespread protests. My hon. Friend will remember that, before the agency began its work, I spoke to him and to many other colleagues in the House and warned them that although the expectation would be resistance from and difficulties for women when the agency was introduced, in fact the reaction would come from men who were reluctant to pay in full the costs of maintaining their children. We must recognise that there is inevitably some resistance to paying in full the costs of maintaining children if people have not been doing so until now.

§ Mr. Ingram
Does the Secretary of State accept that there is real anger—as evidenced in questions that have been raised by Conservative Members, and, not least, by hon. Members from other parts of the House—at the way in which the Act has been implemented in practice and that the patience of those who have been targeted by the agency is rapidly running out? When does he expect his Minister to report to the House on the Department's review of the agency? Will he give an assurance that the review will rest on the needs of the children, not the Treasury?

§ Mr. Lilley
The hon. Gentleman talked about targeting and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State explained that the take-on schedule of the agency has not been 11 changed. I remind the hon. Gentleman that, in 96 per cent. of the cases so far contacted by the agency, the mother and child are on benefit and the father usually has a reasonable income. That fact has not come over in many of the representations that have been made. It is rare for the fathers to mention that they have been content to leave their child, and the mother of their child, on benefit.
Two thirds of those whom we are taking on this year have been paying no benefit at all and we have been much more successful than many people suggest in tracking down absent fathers who had left without any trace—92 per cent. have now been traced. We will take those facts into account while keeping the agency under review, as well as the points that the hon. Gentleman made, which, of course, I recognise also have a significance.

§ 11. Mr. Tredinnick
To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what assessment he has made of the extent to which Child Support Agency decisions have resulted in a second wife making a contribution to the maintenance of the first wife.

§ Mr. Burt
There are no circumstances in which a second wife of an absent parent will be required to contribute to the maintenance of the first. Details of the earnings of an absent parent's new partner are needed for just two reasons: first, to assess whether she can afford to contribute towards the upkeep of her own children in the new relationship; and, secondly, to determine whether the amount of maintenance that the absent parent has been assessed to pay can be reduced under the protected income provisions.

§ Mr. Tredinnick
Does my hon. Friend agree that, however laudable his aims, there are real problems faced by fathers when they receive a bill for 15 weeks' maintenance if they have not been quick enough off the mark in getting the form in? Does he further agree that that, for whatever reasons, is causing real hardship and that there is a danger that the second family will end up trying to support the first family through a circuitous route?

§ Mr. Burt
On my hon. Friend's point about arrears, it is not the case that those arrears need to be paid off immediately; the agency fully understands the impact that a sizeable amount of arrears might have on a family and it is possible to negotiate with the agency how the arrears should be paid off. It should also be remembered that there is another voice, which tends not to come out in press reports, and has not come out much here, although it has been commented on by the Select Committee. At the end of all this, there is a parent and a child who are entitled to receive the maintenance. That voice is all too rarely heard.
As to my hon. Friend's point about protection of the second family, they are protected through the formulae. Matters that my hon. Friend and others have raised will be taken into account.

§ Mr. Rooney
Does the Minister accept that the principle of the absent parent paying maintenance was accepted at the time before the formula was published? The formula was published some time after the Bill went through Committee and the House. Does he further accept that, if children are in a family situation where benefit is paid, the involvement of the Child Support Agency should be limited to the amount of benefit in payment for those children and that any additional maintenance recovered should go to the family?

§ Mr. Burt
The formula was part of the Act. It was debated and consulted on. As to social security, it was always intended that, in cases where it was assessed that the absent parent could afford to do so, the financial responsibility for the care of children should move from the social security system to the absent parent. In some cases maintenance will be a substitute for Income Support; in others, the sums received by the children will certainly improve their circumstances. That is a quote from paragraph 20 of today's Select Committee report.

§ Mr. Harris
Is not it clear to my hon. Friend that every hon. Member accepts that the agency is a good idea—

§ Mr. Skinner
No.

§ Mr. Harris
As usual, the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) is the odd man out. However, most of us feel that the agency has gone drastically wrong in the details and the implications of the scheme. Will he have a word with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and ask him whether he remembers the warning that I gave him, that all hell would break out if court settlements were retrospectively overturned by the agency rather than by the courts? That is what has happened, particularly where husbands have made over houses to their wives. Much of the resentment and many of the difficulties stem from that.

§ Mr. Burt
The principles have been broadly endorsed by the House on a number of occasions and again today by the Select Committee and I do not accept that the way in which the agency has worked has been contrary to the character envisaged. However, some adjustments have been suggested and we are conscious of the criticisms that have been made and are endeavouring to meet them. We have tried to address the central point and the central principles, including the difficulty with the so-called clean break principle. I spent a lot of time on that with the Select Committee, which recognises that there is no other way for the formula to deal with the situation than the way in which we are dealing with it now.
We tried to ensure that we were fair to both sides after the clean break has been made. We are pleased with the endorsement of principle. We shall look at the criticisms and difficulties raised—we do not minimise them. Today has been a good day for the Child Support Agency and for the House, which originally wanted that change. It is up to us to make sure that it happens in a manner that the House finds fully acceptable.