HC Deb 28 March 1994 vol 240 cc626-7
12. Mr. Rooker

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many working mothers in receipt of family credit have had a reduction in financial support from an absent father following the intervention of the Child Support Agency which they have been unable to replace with increased family credit.

Mr. Scott

We estimate that fewer than 1,000 families have temporarily lost income because of the combined effects of the child support changes and the fixed award rule in family credit. Those families entitled to housing benefit or council tax benefit, or who become so entitled following the reduction in maintenance, could recover up to 85 per cent. of their loss.

Mr. Rooker

I am grateful to the Minister for at least showing that the Department has counted the number of working women affected. Will he take it from me that the rigidity of family credit rules mean that working mothers such as one of my own constituents, Miss A—about whom I have written to the Minister—lose about £30 a week maintenance once the Child Support Agency becomes involved? Miss A is unable to have her family credit readjusted so, as far as she is concerned, the agency and the Minister do not care a damn about her circumstances. It is no answer for her to be told by Ministers, "If you lose your job, you can claim income support." Miss A does not want to lose her job—she wants to maintain her income. It is wholly unfair that she loses £40 maintenance weekly and receives only £10 through the Child Support Agency.

Mr. Scott

The success of the family credit 26-week rule has been widely welcomed. I am reluctant to interfere with that rule because of the impact on child support matters. Of course there will be gainers as well as losers under the present arrangement.

Mr. John Marshall

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that family credit is one of the Government's great successes? Can he say how many families receive that benefit and how many received assistance under the old family income supplement?

Mr. Scott

There has been a tremendous increase in the number of recipients over the old family income supplement. Some 500,000 families now benefit from the certainty that they will, for a 26-week period, receive a given amount of family credit support.

Mr. Hardy

How is it that the Minister can give my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) a detailed response when scores or hundreds of Members of Parliament have been waiting for detailed responses from the Child Support Agency since 1993? In many cases, injustice is matched with outrageous incompetence, which causes great concern and anxiety.

Mr. Scott

The agency's performance has steadily improved in recent months and it is intending to improve further in the weeks and months ahead. The job that the agency is doing is right, and it is doing that job increasingly well.