Child Support Agency (Hansard, 28 February 1994)

§ 11. Mr. Lord
To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what further changes he plans in the Child Support Agency rules.

§ Mr. Burt
We have no current plans for further changes to the scheme. It is important that the recent changes are allowed time to take effect, However, we have always said that we will keep the operation of the Child Support Act 1991 under close scrutiny, and we shall continue to do so.

§ Mr. Lord
Everyone agrees that fathers should contribute to the upkeep of their children, but there is great dissatisfaction with some aspects of the Child Support Agency. May I ask my hon. Friend to look, as a matter of the greatest urgency, at those cases where fathers have taken on binding legal agreements with their former wives to contribute to their children's upkeep? They have maintained those payments throughout and are now being asked, because of the changes in the rules, to contribute amounts of money that they either simply cannot afford or that, in many cases, will deeply damage their new family arrangements.

§ Mr. Burt
The impact of the recent changes should be a help in terms of phasing and also reducing some payments made by absent parents. It should not be forgotten that any decrease in payment from an absent parent will have a short or long-term effect on the receipt of money by the parent with care. It was always an intention that levels of maintenance might be raised and previous settlements were looked at very carefully both in the setting up of the Act and more recently by the Select Committee. Indeed, we will keep the operation of the Act under review, as we have made very clear to my hon. Friend, but we want to give the recent changes that we have made some time to have an impact.

§ Mr. Olner
Is the Minister aware of the double standards of the Child Support Agency? It seems to be chasing responsible fathers who have court orders and are doing everything properly, but it is also saying that it will dispose of such court orders and when there is another low court order for a woman, it will not take action or follow the case through until 1996. Is not that the CSA adopting double standards?

§ Mr. Burt
No, I do not think so. The Act set out a take-on strategy which means that by law some cases cannot be taken on until 1996. Just before Christmas, I announced that where it was possible to take on some cases before 1996 by application from a parent with care, we would look sympathetically at that—that had not previously been the case and it would be a help.
As to whether we are going after the right people, about half of the cases taken on by the CSA at present involve those who have not paid maintenance before. By the end of this year, we hope that the figure will be up to about two thirds. Some 15,000 people who have been difficult to trace in the past and who might have escaped paying any maintenance altogether have been found by a specialist tracing unit. We are conscious of that particular criticism and we are doing our very best to meet it.

§ Mr. Matthew Banks
My hon. Friend rightly has drawn attention to the many changes and concessions which have been made, and they have been widely welcomed by hon. Members of all parties. Will he give the House an assurance that he will continue to take a close interest in the operation of the CSA? Unless we stop tinkering and take firm action quickly, many of my constituents and those of other hon. Members—honest, decent and hard-working people—will go bankrupt.

§ Mr. Burt
I recognise the force with which my hon. Friend speaks. Of course, I keep a careful eye on the cases and the correspondence brought to me. The system carries a great deal of good will because of the change from the previous discretionary system, under which the amount of maintenance paid to women with children was falling to extremely low levels.
We have made a series of changes that should improve the system and we will keep it under review. However, it is important to remember that we do not want to go back to a system that failed to obtain maintenance for women in the past. That meant repeated returns to courts and sometimes the avoidance of responsibility. When we make further changes—if they are needed—they must be carefully considered.

§ Mr. Barnes
The Minister's initial reply was disappointing. The CSA will be like the poll tax; in that case, one bit of transitional relief was followed by another, before the poll tax was finally scrapped. Should not responsible and respectable parents in second families have their interests taken into account by a further alteration in the measure?

§ Mr. Burt
I take the hon. Gentleman's point, but my earlier reply suggested how seriously we take the issue and how determined we are to make sure that the system is right. We have made some changes, and we want to make sure that they have an impact, but we will keep the matter under careful review. We all have a vested interest in making sure that there is a good system of child maintenance throughout the UK, and that is not a point at issue between the parties.