Child Support Agency

HC Deb 31 January 1994 vol 236 cc603-6

3. Mr. Hain

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will now abolish the Child Support Agency.

Mr. Lilley

No.

Mr. Hain

Will the Secretary of State respond to the detailed and devastating indictment of the operation of the Child Support Agency by a victim, one of my constituents, Mrs. Carol Jenkins? She showed that the pre-Christmas changes that were announced by the Government were mere window-dressing. Many families are still suffering chaos and heartache. The operation of the CSA is contrary to natural justice in that it is retrospective and overturns court orders, some of which were implemented seven or eight years ago. Has the time not come to wipe the slate clean and abolish the Child Support Agency, which is turning thousands of ordinary, decent men and women into a new oppressed class?

Mr. Lilley

The hon. Gentleman seems unaware—I hope that he is becoming aware and will pass on my answer to his constituent—that the changes that were announced before Christmas, in rapid response to the investigations that were carried out by the Social Security Select Committee and that, in some respects, went rather further than it recommended, are to be introduced into the House shortly. I hope that they will come into force on 7 February. Obviously, when they do so, those who are affected by them will appreciate the benefit.

As for scrapping the agency, that would deprive hundreds of thousands of women of the prospect of reliable, regular and substantial maintenance. It would mean that men would no longer be expected to fulfil their obligations to their children and that taxpayers would have to pay sizeable sums, which the Opposition are not yet prepared to promise to meet. I thought that the hon. Gentleman was a supporter of the feminist tendency within the Labour party. He seems to be backing the male chauvinist wing now.

Mrs. Roe

Will my right hon. Friend accept that I and many others welcome the changes to the Child Support Agency which he announced before Christmas? Is he aware that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) has proposed a disregard of £10 a week, which would cost £340 million on his figures? Will my right hon. Friend confirm that disregarding maintenance paid through the Child Support Agency for income support purposes would give many married women an incentive to separate?

Mr. Lilley

My hon. Friend makes a good point. We look forward to seeing whether the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman is prepared to utter that pledge in the House, in which case we can take it seriously, or whether it is in the category of pledges made outside the House which we should disregard entirely. The extra taxpayer expenditure of £340 million proposed by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) would not alleviate one penny of the burden on the absent parent, but it would create an incentive to separate in exactly the way that my hon. Friend suggests. I do not think that that is necessarily the best use of taxpayers' money. We await the opportunity for a supplementary question to provide some clarification from the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman.

Mr. Alex Carlile

Does the Secretary of State appreciate that in the negotiation, usually at arm's length, of most clean-break settlements, extra allowance of capital is made to the wife to reflect the cost of supporting children? Does he agree that, while there have been useful changes to the CSA regime, they have failed to give full account to the real intention and effect of clean-break settlements land have undermined the good advice frequently given to spouses at the break-up of marriage?

Mr. Lilley

I would recommend that the hon. and learned Gentleman read the letter from Nicholas Mostyn of the Family Law Association in The Spectator, which considers the issue in detail. He should also consider the ruling in the Crozier case—

Mr. Carlile

The Minister is obviously missing the point.

Mr. Lilley

The hon. and learned Gentleman may disagree with the judge in the Crozier case, who said that the courts always have the opportunity to take into account the fact that either parent could come back and seek a change, as could the Department of Social Security, if the parent is left on benefit. The courts have always looked to clean-break settlements between husband and wife, but there has never been the possibility of a clean break between parents and childen. Parents cannot divorce their children; nor should they seek, by an asset transfer, to transfer the cost of maintenance to the taxpayer if they have the necessary resources themselves.

Sir David Madel

When the Child Support Agency draws up an assessment, why does it ask for income details of the second wife when she has no children of her own? Could my right hon. Friend look again sympathetically at the point made by the hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) in the last Social Security questions, which is that travel-to-work costs should be considered because it costs a small fortune to commute from Essex or Befordshire to London?

Mr. Lilley

The second wife's income is taken into account only in the context of setting the protected income. As hon. Members will know, under the proposed changes, the protected income is being raised by £22 per week above the previous level. On reviewing that, I have decided that the information need no longer be given to the first parent when the protected income does not come into play. That will reduce the transfer of information, which caused some stress when it was unnecessary.

We considered, as did the Select Committee on Social Security, the possibility of taking into account specific costs, but we thought that it was better to leave people with an appropriate share of their income after meeting their burden, and to meet the other costs from that income, rather than specifying each and every cost that they should meet.

Mr. Ingram

Has the Secretary of State had an opportunity to read the recent analysis of the Child Support Act 1992 produced by the citizens advice bureaux in Scotland? While recognising that certain benefits can accrue from the Act, the CABs call for some serious amendments in order to produce a workable scheme that will benefit the family and not merely the State". Will the Secretary of State accept that observation and undertake a thorough and urgent review of the Act, and introduce amendments that will take account of the many criticisms that have been raised by the CABs and other groups about the workings of the Act?

Mr. Lilley

I have not personally seen the CAB Scottish review, although I dare say that my hon. Friend in the Scottish Office has done so. I will look at the review afterwards.

The Government have carried out our review and we have responded to a review carried out by the all-party Select Committee, and we have gone somewhat further in some respects. We are introducing it before the House and, I hope, implementing it rapidly in February so that the pressure points that we have identified will be alleviated. We want to know from the Opposition—the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) failed to respond to this—whether they are sticking by their £340 million pledge, which would not help absent parents at all. Why did not the hon. Gentleman respond? Will the Opposition's other Front-Bench spokesmen clarify the situation? Are they reneging on the recommendations of the all-party Select Committee?

Mr. Cormack

I welcome the changes that my right hon. Friend will introduce on Wednesday, but I urge him to continue to monitor the working of the agency carefully to ensure that responsible fathers are not unduly penalised and that vast numbers of second marriages are not thereby put at risk.

Mr. Lilley

As my hon. Friend knows, we keep all our policies under continuous review. We shall try to ensure that the detailed operation of the policy is as sensitive and as efficient as possible, and that as few mistakes as possible —ideally, no mistakes—are made. We hope that the changes that we have announced will meet the pressure points that have been identified and brought to our attention, both by the Select Committee and by individual hon. Members such as my hon. Friend. We have done what is right to make the policy acceptable while preserving the basic principle that both parents are responsible for supporting their children, and that the taxpayer should be involved only if the parents do not have the means to do so.