Child Support Bill

HC Deb 20 March 1995 vol 257 cc21-116

Order for Second Reading read.

[Relevant documents: The Third Report from the Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration of Session 1994-95 on the Child Support Agency (House of Commons Paper No. 199) and the Memorandum submitted to the Social Security Committee by the Chief Executive of the Child Support Agency (HC 303).]

Madam Speaker

I have selected the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition

3.36 pm

The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Peter Lilley)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The background to the Bill is well known to right hon. and hon. Members. In 1991, Parliament passed the Child Support Act to ensure that parents who lived apart supported their children themselves, to the extent that they could afford to do so. The whole House supported that principle, but rapidly became concerned about how it was working in practice; so I introduced some early changes in February last year. I promised to keep the system under close review, I promised a positive response to the Select Committee's investigation and I published the White Paper "Improving Child Support" this February.

The White Paper promised major changes, to be introduced in two stages. Those which could be made by means of regulations would be introduced as soon as possible—and I duly published regulations on 16 March, which will come into force in April. They will improve the formula by setting a ceiling on assessments of 30 per cent. of net income, or the minimum of £2.30 per week; making a broad-brush allowance for property transfers made before April 1993, when the agency became responsible for setting child support; making an allowance for travel-to-work costs for those living more than 15 miles from their place of employment; and allowing an absent parent to deduct all reasonable costs of housing his new partner or stepchildren. They will also limit the maximum payable above basic maintenance.

The other half of the changes announced in the White Paper require primary legislation—hence the Bill.

Mr. William O'Brien (Normanton)

First, what action does the Secretary of State intend to take in the case of a parent who is living in the same household as his or her family and maintaining that family, but is classed as an absent parent? That has happened since the establishment of the agency. Secondly, does the White Paper include any provision to take account of the stress, strain and hurt caused to families by the existing legislation?

Mr. Lilley

The hon. Gentleman's first question struck me as complex; I should like to consider it in detail. I do not think that the Bill refers to it specifically, but we may wish to consider it further in the light of representations or any specific cases that the hon. Gentleman can cite. He may have already discussed the matter with my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Burt), the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State.

On the second point, the main purpose of the Bill is to improve the system of child support so that it has greater acceptability and works better, to streamline the operations and to encourage greater compliance. That means that the problems that we have seen, which we all acknowledge and regret, will be less frequent in future than they were in the past and will gradually disappear as the situation improves. There is not a specific proposal of the sort that the hon. Gentleman suggested, but we are introducing a limitation on the arrears that can accrue where the fault is that of the agency, and I think that that is one of the major complaints and sources of distress that people have. In general, when it is the fault of the agency, the maximum arrears will be six months, assuming that there is agreement with the absent parent.

The changes will enable the agency or an appeal tribunal to depart from the amount that has been assessed under the formula to take account of exceptional expenses or past property settlements. The Bill will also defer indefinitely take-on by the Child Support Agency of non-benefit cases where parents had a maintenance agreement before the agency began its work. It will introduce a child maintenance bonus. It provides for compensation for parents on family credit or disability working allowance whose maintenance income is cut by the other policy changes.

The proposals that I announced in the White Paper have already been widely welcomed. They encompass and in some respects go further than the Select Committee's report, and they meet nearly all the main concerns that have arisen since the CSA began its work.

There is no doubt that the two features of CSA assessments that have given rise to most concern over the past year or two have been: first, the treatment of past property settlements; and secondly, the inability to take account of special factors that are not reflected in the formula. I concluded that no reform could command widespread support unless it addressed both those issues. Yet, unfortunately, neither could be satisfactorily addressed simply by adjusting the formula—something that we can do by changing regulations.

From April, the regulations will introduce an allowance into the formula for past property settlements. But the way in which the formula works means that the recognition of past property settlements can be only broad brush. It will be satisfactory for many couples, but some may feel that it does not reflect the true trade-off that was made between property transferred and child maintenance obligations.

Dr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Port Glasgow)

If the Secretary of State is successful today with the Bill, is it his intention to send it to a Special Standing Committee, as is allowed under the Standing Orders of the House? Does he agree that such a procedure would vastly benefit those assigned to sit on that Standing Committee, as they could take evidence from those who are familiar with our system and with comparable systems elsewhere?

Mr. Lilley

That matter is not for me alone, but for the usual channels in the House. The hon. Gentleman might care to raise it with the Leader of the House on a Thursday. I want to ensure that we get the Bill through in time to introduce the changes. I am grateful for the promise given by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) to ensure that there is no trench warfare on the Bill, that it does not get bogged down and so on. I would not want to undertake any procedure that prolonged the process of consideration

Sir Patrick Cormack (Staffordshire, South)

I commend the point made by the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman). It is crucial that this time we get it right, and if that means taking evidence via the special procedure, let us look at that.

Mr. Lilley

I entirely endorse my hon. Friend's point about the importance of getting it right. I assure him that I have a vested interest in that. I think that we all do, and I want to make sure that, whatever the procedures, the Bill is given proper consideration and that we take into account all appropriate factors and likely outcomes. None the less, we have an obligation to everybody to ensure that we make as speedy progress as possible consistent with proper scrutiny, so that we can introduce the changes, for which there is considerable demand. We should also bear it in mind that there is little understanding in the country at large about the time taken by our normal procedures, even in the happiest of circumstances.

Ms Liz Lynne (Rochdale)

Will the Minister give way

Mr. Lilley

Perhaps the hon. Lady will allow me to make a little more progress. I shall try to give way to her later.

As I said, some changes have been introduced by regulations that affect property settlements. Likewise, we are introducing a broad-brush allowance in the formula to help those who commute long distances.

Mr. Donald Dewar (Glasgow, Garscadden)

I interrupt the Minister because he is moving to a subject that I should like to raise. Of course, I understand the argument that persuaded the Minister to deal merely with pre-April 1993 property settlements. However, in the interests of the children, there is quite a strong social argument for trying to encourage the transfer of the matrimonial home to the parent with care. The fact that there is no provision for future capital or property settlements, as there is under some other systems, is a matter of some concern. Did the Minister consider that?

Mr. Lilley

Yes, that matter was one of the few that were specifically considered, and it is mentioned in the Opposition's reasoned amendment. Paradoxically, that does not look back to past property settlements, but forward to future ones. The matter is for choice and negotiation between the parties concerned. As long as they meet the maintenance obligations of the formula, the issue of how they deal with asset transfers is broader, as it has been in the past.

I was moving to other changes that can be introduced in the formula to deal with exceptional cases. We cannot specify all expenses that might prove onerous because that would overload the formula and would mean seeking an immense amount of extra information from all absent parents, although the bulk of them would not qualify for any changes as a result. The only way to make satisfactory allowance for individuals with exceptional expenses or past property settlements that are not correctly reflected in the broad-brush formula changes is to allow them some flexibility. Therefore, the Bill introduces powers to depart from the formula assessment in certain circumstances.

It may helpful for me to spell out how we envisage the new departure system working. After the assessment has been made, either parent may seek a departure from the formula. That will include parents who had an assessment before the departure system was set up but, of course, no departure would be backdated to earlier than the start of the departure system or when the claim was made.

In the first instance, the agency can consider requests to depart from the formula. There is no need to go through a formal appeal to an independent tribunal system, although either parent could subsequently appeal if he or she was not satisfied with the way in which the agency used or refused to use its discretion to depart from the formula in response to a claim. It would be wrong to allow a departure request to become an excuse for delaying payment. Therefore, the absent parent may be required to pay either the full maintenance assessment that he had had until then or a safe rate, which reflected what might be assessed if the departure application were to succeed.

If there were no grounds for departure or if the resulting reduction in maintenance would be very small, the agency could refuse to look at the case and, of course, there would be an automatic right of appeal to an independent appeals tribunal if the parent did not agree with the assessment.

A number of grounds for departure are specified in new schedule 4B. They include unavoidable costs of travel to work if the broad-brush allowance in the formula is very different from the actual costs that a parent incurs. High travel-to-work costs to maintain contact with the child are an important issue. A number of hon. Members have raised it and we do not think that it can be handled by a formula element.

Another ground for departure is extra costs arising from the long-term illness or disability of the applicant or a dependant. Another is, in exceptional cases, the costs of stepchildren, for example when their own parent has died. Others are some debts arising from the previous relationship and property transfers for which a more exact calculation is needed of the amount to be allowed against maintenance. The details of all those grounds for departure from the formula will be set out in regulations. The Bill gives powers to include additional grounds through secondary legislation, should that be found necessary.

Mr. Simon Coombs (Swindon)

My right hon. Friend has not mentioned specifically the problem that many families have with loans, taken out for house improvements, motor cars or whatever, which were entered into in good faith before they became aware of their responsibilities. Is that part of my right hon. Friend's consideration under the heading of departure direction?

Mr. Lilley

That is a potential ground for departure, which comes under the heading of debts arising from the previous relationship prior to the assessment being made. A departure can be made only if it will be just and equitable, taking account of the circumstances of both parties, the welfare of the child and the interests of the taxpayer.

Ms Lynne

Does not the Secretary of State realise that the Bill is just tinkering at the edges of the Child Support Act 1991? It does not go nearly far enough and it does not have the support of the parent with care or the so-called "absent parent". Is not it about time that the right hon. Gentleman decided to repeal the Act and to start from the very beginning?

Mr. Lilley

What an opportunist change of tune. How typical it is of the Liberal Democrats to try simultaneously to offer a complete let-off for absent parents from any requirement to pay and to offer the moon and moonshine to the lone parent and the parent with care. I shall come to the amendment in the name of the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), which was not selected, in due course. It is, I am afraid, as insubstantial as the hon. Lady's intervention.

When departures are allowed, special costs will be treated like other allowable expenses and will be deducted from the parent's income before maintenance is assessed. If, however, an allowance is made for a property transfer, it can be deducted directly from the maintenance assessment itself. Although it is generally more likely that it will be the absent parent rather than the parent with care who will apply for a departure from the formula assessment, either parent will be able to apply if it is appropriate in their circumstances. A parent with care who earns enough to contribute to maintenance, for example, may have high travel-to-work costs and could appeal on that ground.

I also intend to introduce some grounds for departures that will be especially relevant to parents with care. Examples are cases in which they believe that the other parent's standard of living is higher than the declared income would suggest, cases in which housing costs are unduly high or should be met by a new partner and cases in which the broad-brush formula allowance towards the other parent's travel-to work costs is unreasonable. Again, those grounds for departure will also be available to absent parents if the circumstances are appropriate.

When maintenance is reduced as a result of policy changes, parents with care on income support will not lose money because income support is adjusted immediately. However, awards of family credit and disability working allowance are set for six months ahead. For those whose maintenance assessment drops because of the changes, I intend to provide some compensation until the end of the award period.

The Bill also makes provision for overpaid maintenance. If there is an overpayment, the absent parent's maintenance assessment is usually reduced until it has been cleared. That will continue to be the way in which most overpayments are dealt with, but in some cases, a reduction in maintenance may not be possible or it may not be possible to clear the overpayment in a reasonable time. The maintenance liability may, for example, be about to cease because the child is leaving school soon. The Bill will, therefore, introduce a provision allowing consideration to be given to reimbursing absent parents in such cases. Those changes and others to which I shall come in a moment will improve the perceived fairness of the level of assessments.

It is also vital to continue to improve the operations of the agency. There is no doubt that administrative problems have caused genuine grievance and aggravated the concerns of many people. The report of the Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration highlights those issues, many of which we have already taken steps to address. We have, for example, already announced a range of administrative and regulatory measures to improve the organisational efficiency of the CSA.

Some of the changes necessary to improve operations require primary legislation. At present, if a parent seeks a review of his assessment because his circumstances have changed, the agency is obliged to review every item of the existing assessment. Such a review can be immensely time consuming. Clause 12 will mean that the agency can consider just the specific circumstances that have changed and amend the assessment accordingly.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich)

Is the Secretary of State aware that many of the difficulties with the Child Support Agency arose specifically from the direction given by Ministers that the people taken on should not be members of the civil service? Many of the women who are now doing the job—I can say this from personal experience—are not only very low-paid civil servants, but very young and have little experience in what they are required to do. Is he aware, for example, that many of those women are expected to counsel people who genuinely say such things as, "When I put the phone down, I am going to commit suicide"? No civil servant should be put in such a situation. Will the right hon. Gentleman take responsibility for ensuring that those women, many of whom are in an intolerable situation, are given support, understanding and proper training before they are exposed to such pressures?

Mr. Lilley

The hon. Lady is absolutely right about the sensitivity of much of the work. I do not think, however, that we can say that all civil servants have sensitivity and those taken on from the private sector lack it. Training is necessary. At a very early stage, before the agency was ever established, we set up courses with the help of Relate, formerly the Marriage Guidance Council, to help those dealing with women who had difficulties with whether to name the parent of their child when they originally received the maintenance application form. There was a widespread welcome for the sensitivity with which that was handled and for the training and preparation that went into it. The head of the agency is looking at some of the specific points that the hon. Lady mentions, to ensure that they are always dealt with sensitively. I entirely agree with her that that is necessary.

Mr. David Ashby (Leicestershire, North-West)

My right hon. Friend will know that right hon. and hon. Members receive, as I do, four, five, six, seven or eight CSA cases in every surgery. [HON. MEMBERS: "No they do not."] Well, I certainly do. One of the matters that comes to my attention time and again, which I have raised with my right hon. Friend, is that often people know that the agency is acting on wrong information, because that information is often fraudulent. They complain that benefits are being given fraudulently, that they have no control over the investigation of fraud and that they are never told of the results of the investigation.

The agency simply has to go on what it receives, yet it knows that the information is wrong; that—possibly—the wife or the husband is living with someone, and it is not being given that information. The agency knows that it is wrong and people know that they are paying too much, yet the agency insists on continuing to take the same amount.

Mr. Lilley

My hon. Friend is right to say that many people believe that the other parent is giving false information to the agency and want to make it clear to the agency. I have emphasised to the CSA and the Benefits Agency, partly in response to my hon. Friend, but partly in response to the experience of other hon. Members, that any such allegations should be pursued. Allegations are, of course, pursued by the Benefits Agency, as it is usually its role to do so. The difficulty is that it is not possible for the Benefits Agency to report the outcome of its investigation to someone who has made an allegation about fraud. It would not be right to have a sort of snoopers charter, so that one could make an allegation about somebody and get a report on the precise circumstances of that person once the investigation had been carried out. I assure my hon. Friend that those allegations are pursued, and that point will be re-emphasised by the record of this exchange in Hansard. That will stress the importance that is attached to the matter by everyone in the Benefits Agency.

Mr. Ashby

My specific point relates to the appeals procedure. With regard to that procedure, will what both parties are alleging be transparent? The appeals procedure should be able to decide that a wrong amount has been paid because the facts are clear, for example, the documentation exists to show that a woman is living with another man, or there is photographic evidence. Will such evidence be produced in the appeals procedure to show that someone should not be paying quite so much?

Mr. Lilley

The frauds involved will sometimes not influence the amount that the absent parent is required to pay. If there is doubt about the factual amounts, that can be dealt with by the existing appeals procedure, which is an assessment of the amounts and the accuracy with which they are calculated.

With regard to the changes introduced by the Bill, under the current rules, when an absent parent is late in paying maintenance, interest is charged. That has proved difficult to implement and immensely complex. It will be removed and replaced by a set penalty.

To limit the additional pressures on the agency, I propose to defer the take-on of cases of parents with care who have a court order or written agreement made before April 1993, but who are not on benefit. They will retain the right to use the courts if they wish to seek a variation in the amount of maintenance. I shall also offer them the opportunity to use the agency's collection and enforcement service for a fee.

Mr. Frank Field (Birkenhead)

The Secretary of State keeps using the word "deferral". What is the time scale? When will those mothers, many of whom are working to keep their families, receive the help from the agency that they were promised in the original legislation?

Mr. Lilley

None of the people affected is dependent on benefit. Nothing is set down in the Bill as to when the deferred decision would be made. However, it would be made only by, and with the approval of, the House.

Mr. Field

The Secretary of State cannot give those answers and, from the Dispatch Box, also say that the Bill is not about saving the Treasury money. We are now talking about mothers, many of whom have been deserted, who are working and who, to their credit, are not on benefit, but who are being deserted by the Secretary of State's decision. The Secretary of State still will not give the House, and more importantly those mothers, a date when they can expect help from the CSA.

Mr. Lilley

We are talking about couples who reached an agreement, before the agency was set up, which had no direct implications for the taxpayer. It seems to me that the agency's priority should be to deal with those who involve the taxpayer in their arrangements—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because we have an obligation to the taxpayer. I was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) referring to us saving money for the Treasury. The Treasury does not have money; it is taxpayers' money—[Interruption.]

Mr. David Nicholson (Taunton)

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Lilley

Yes, but I want to make progress after I have given way.

Mr. Nicholson

I very much welcome the changes that my right hon. Friend is outlining and the Department's serious response to the serious report by the Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration, of which I am a member, into maladministration. In response to the points made by the hon. Members for Rochdale (Ms Lynne) and for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), will my right hon. Friend stress the CSA's limited success in doing what all hon. Members expected it to do when it was set up, that is, pursuing those who had disappeared and abdicated their responsibilities?

Mr. Lilley

I assure the House and my hon. Friend that that is a prime priority of the agency and that it is increasingly successful. Very large numbers of absent parents who had absconded, in the sense that they had broken off all contact with their children and the mothers looking after their children, have been traced and identified and are being pursued by the agency for maintenance. Some 77 per cent. of those tackled so far had not been paying any maintenance whatever. In 96 per cent. of cases, even if the father was paying some maintenance, the mother and child were dependent on benefit.

After a slow start, the agency is now improving its performance month by month. The amount of maintenance collected by the agency this year is likely to be five times that which it collected last year. The amount is set to double again next year. In addition to the amount of maintenance that it collects, the agency arranges even more maintenance, which is paid direct by the absent parent to the parent with care.

Next year the agency expects to collect or arrange a total of some £300 million of maintenance. The total savings, including those from people who are discouraged from claiming benefit or who leave benefit as a result, are expected to amount to £540 million next year.

The Opposition parties have tabled reasoned amendments. Labour's amendment welcomes the new departure system and makes it clear that its only specific area of disagreement has narrowed to its proposal that we should ignore some maintenance when calculating income support. But the amendment is characteristically vague about how large the disregard of maintenance should be, how much it would cost and how the Labour party would pay for it.

The fact is that Labour's original proposal of a disregard of £8 per week of maintenance would cost £165 million a year. Moreover, such a disregard would make it harder for a parent with care to improve her standard of living by returning to work. It would be unfair to widows and lone parents whose former husbands were unable to pay maintenance and who therefore relied solely on income support. It would also be unfair to families who did not split up, but who had to pay through their taxes to support the children of people who did, some of whom were better off than they were.

I remind the Opposition that the total cost of supporting lone parents in Britain is £8.5 billion a year. That has to be paid by taxes levelled on, among others, two-parent families. It is equivalent to £1,400 per couple to support the children of lone parents. In effect, taxes on couples with children who stay together have to be on average £1,400 a year higher to support lone parents.

We accept that there must be help for lone parents in the interests of their children, but, unlike the Labour party, we are not in the business of piling yet higher burdens on those who stick together to provide double compensation for those who, sadly, split up. We believe that maintenance should be a stepping stone for lone parents to self-help, not a trap in dependency. All the surveys show that most lone parents want to get back to work. So we have put a disregard into the in-work benefits, not the out-of-work benefits. We have put a £15 a week disregard into family credit, disability working allowance, housing benefit and council tax benefit.

On top of that disregard, we now propose a child maintenance bonus. That will give lone parents an interest in receiving maintenance. It is worth some £5 per week, which they can accumulate up to £1,000. It is cashable when they return to work. So it gives them both an incentive and help when they return to work, as many wish to do.

Whereas the Labour party specifically welcomes the new discretionary departures, the Liberal party's sole objection to the Bill is that it is not sufficiently flexible. We heard that from the hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms Lynne) just now. Of course, the Liberals would like every policy to be sufficiently flexible to accommodate the mutually contradictory promises that they are in the habit of making to the electorate. They want to be able to promise mothers that they will receive more and fathers that they will pay less. The Liberals do not spell out in their amendment how they would make the system more flexible. We look forward to concrete proposals from the Liberal Democrats. But experience shows that if those who determine maintenance are given open-ended flexibility, they will invariably transfer most of the cost of support back to the taxpayer.

The old court system resulted in fewer and fewer parents every year receiving maintenance, awards that in general were inadequate and dramatically inconsistent and a situation where even the cost of pet food took priority over the cost of supporting one's own child. Is that the sort of thing to which the Liberal Democrat party wishes to return?

Ms Lynne

The Secretary of State does not seem to appreciate that we would put in place of the current proposals a far fairer system than the one that he is suggesting. I shall spell out that system when I make my speech, if the right hon. Gentleman will be patient.

Mr. Lilley

We look forward with interest to that speech from the lone Liberal.

One thing that I hope neither Opposition party, nor any of us, will do today is indulge in rewriting history with the benefit of hindsight. All of us—the Government most of all, but also Parliament, Opposition parties, civil servants and the media—have a lot to learn from the experience of the Child Support Act. Not only was the Act passed with general acclaim, but the bulk of the criticism and concerns expressed at the time were almost the exact opposite of the complaints that emerged after it was implemented.

Almost all the complaints assumed that the Bill did not go far enough to help women and anticipated criticisms from them. I looked up the Labour party's reasoned amendment on Second Reading. Every single item in the amendment asserted that the Bill did not go far enough to help women, whereas not a single reference was made to anticipating complaints from absent fathers.

The Trades Union Congress, in its contribution to the consultation process that preceded the Bill, criticised our proposals as letting off middle-class fathers too lightly. It argued for a higher marginal rate of contribution from fathers who had met their basic maintenance requirement. The TUC's plea was endorsed by Labour during the Second Reading debate.

At no point in the Second or Third Reading debates did Opposition Front-Bench Members call for a discretionary departure system or a recognition of past property settlements, which we are introducing in this Bill.

The media also focused almost exclusively on the feminist critique of the original Bill, largely ignoring at that stage the potential criticisms from absent fathers. I am not trying to transfer responsibility on to the Opposition or anyone else. The Government have the main responsibility to foresee problems, since the Government have the lead role. Government propose, Opposition oppose, Parliament disposes and the media expose. But it has to be said that, with the distinguished exception of the Select Committee, few of those whose job it was to check and criticise the Executive can claim to have had better foresight than the Government. So I hope that we shall not have too much 20:20 hindsight vision from Opposition Members today.

Every country that has introduced a child support agency has been through a similar process to that which we have experienced. There have been immense operational problems in establishing an entirely new method of handling maintenance, with resistance coming from many absent parents. Reforms have been needed in the light of practical experience. After a time, those reforms have led to a greater acceptance, and I believe that our reforms will do the same.

We should not imagine that an issue as sensitive as child maintenance will cease to arouse strong emotions. Australia's Child Support Agency—even after six years of operation—still generates a great deal of constituency correspondence and heated political interest. However good the system—we are determined that ours should improve in every respect—a child support agency is like a lightning conductor in a thunderstorm. It is bound to attract highly charged attention. None the less, the policy and operational changes that we are introducing will firmly establish the child support arrangements that we have in place for the future.

Mr. David Shaw (Dover)

My right hon. Friend mentioned Australia, and he will know that the Select Committee looked at the Australian experience. Is he aware that one of the interesting aspects of the criticism of child support operations in Australia is that many people there want to have a system that operates in a similar way to ours?

Mr. Lilley

That is certainly the case. When I met the directors general of the Australian and the New Zealand systems, they told me that they had found that there was a great similarity between our systems, but that in some respects ours was superior in meeting directly a number of costs that they had ignored in their rather broad-brush approach. None the less, the changes that we are introducing take advantage of some of their experience and introduce some features that are similar to theirs, so that we shall get the best of both worlds.

The Bill will give relief to hard cases, allay the resentment felt by many of those who transferred property in lieu of maintenance, streamline operations and give mothers a stake in receiving maintenance and help in returning to work. After the changes are enacted, no one will realistically be able to refuse to pay maintenance. As a result, more children should receive more maintenance more regularly, and I commend the Bill to the House.

4.15 pm

Mr. Donald Dewar (Glasgow, Garscadden)

I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:

That this House insists that the Child Support Bill in the form proposed is unacceptable because although the introduction of an element of discretion to depart from the financial formula and the overdue recognition that clean-break settlements must be taken into account are welcome, the current proposals do not adequately address the problems that have undermined public confidence in the Child Support Agency, nor do they end a system under which children living in the poorest households are the least likely to benefit from increased maintenance payments; indeed the majority of those dependent on Income Support are left not one penny better off. The Secretary of State properly asked us not to rewrite history, but proceeded to do so in a remarkably selective passage with his account of what happened when the Bill was first produced in 1991. We have stoutly maintained our support for the principle behind the Bill, but consistently argued from the beginning that there were some difficulties£sadly, in the event, some of those arguments have been justified. A squabble about history is not necessarily the best way of looking to the future, but, in view of what the Secretary of State said, I am bound to point that out.

I think that we can all agree that the Child Support Agency started out with admirable aims and sensible objectives. It was launched with social purpose and was designed to improve on a court system that was demonstrably unsatisfactory. The Secretary of State referred to the agency having a slow start. To use a word that was used earlier, that is not so much a lugubrious as an insanely bullish interpretation of what happened during the first year of the new system.

I hope that no one will accuse me of overstating the case, but it has been a bruising and bad experience and, at times, has looked little short of a disaster area. Although there have been some improvements in performance, until now the system has failed to deliver its financial targets, has bred a great deal of mistrust and bitterness and arguably and, most sadly of all, has put at risk the very principles that it was brought into being to defend.

Dr. Robert Spink (Castle Point)

rose—

Mr. Dewar

I shall not give way, as I want to make a little progress.

Everyone in the House has been taken aback by the system's unpopularity and I agree that none of us anticipated that at the beginning. There are many causes. Perhaps I am being severe, but it is true to say that one has been Ministers' failure to recognise the scale of the problems and the depth of perceived injustice—the anger that led to non-co-operation, which in turn led to ever-increasing and destructive inefficiency—and, above all, to react to those problems in time.

The Bill represents limited progress, and I would be ungracious if I did not say so. I recognised that fact in the reasoned amendment. The Bill forms part of the implementation of the proposals in the White Paper "Improving Child Support". We contend that it is incomplete, however, and we tabled the reasoned amendment on that basis.

The main provisions of the Bill represent a retreat by Ministers. As the Secretary of State will remember, Opposition Members have long pushed and pressed the virtues of having some form of redress that would allow a departure from the financial formula in special and hard cases. We were repeatedly told that that form of discretion was impossible because it would open the floodgates, and I am grateful that the Secretary of State has accepted that he was wrong to take that attitude and that he has decided to move on that point.

Mr. Lilley

Can the hon. Gentleman find a quotation in which I repudiate the idea completely? I said that we must not have an open-ended system and we have been careful to ensure that these proposals are not open-ended.

Mr. Dewar

The Secretary of State is optimistic about his attitudes. Once he finally reaches the right decision, he has a great ability to convince himself that he had always held to it. If he has always believed it, it is strange that he cannot explain why he did not move much sooner. The kindest thing that I can say to the Secretary of State is that, whenever the matter was raised by the Opposition, it was met by arguments of inertia with the straightest and deadest of bats, and there was no sign of movement until the crisis was so acute in terms of the system's credibility that something had to be done.

Dr. Spink

Before the hon. Gentleman moves on to the detail, may I press him on the principle that parents are responsible for their children? Does he recall composite motion No. 9 at last year's Labour party conference, which stated that the Child Support Act undermined the welfare state and removed from partners the right to extricate themselves from intolerable relationships? Does he agree with that? How does that fit with the principle that parents remain responsible for their children?

Mr. Dewar

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman. I am delighted to know that he spends his time reading composite motions put forward at Labour party conferences. I confess that that is more than I do, but that is my fault. I shall take his point seriously because I presume that he is passing on a message from Conservative central office brief and means it to be taken seriously. I clearly remember that, at the last conference, a motion that was too radically destructive of the case which I support was defeated by conference. The hon. Gentleman must look at what we have been saying consistently throughout this debate, which is that we do support the principle that parents are responsible for their children. It is important that parents accept responsibility for contributing towards the upkeep of their children and no one in the Labour party has been prepared to compromise on that.

The Select Committee on the ombudsman charitably decided that it was implicitly acknowledged that, at least with the benefit of hindsight, the Secretary of State had got policy decisions wrong. We might qualify a little on the Committee's kindness in referring to "hindsight", but his decisions clearly were wrong and I am glad that there has been some movement.

I am concerned not only to get the general principle of a departure from the financial formula established but to establish that we have got it right. That will be the job of the Standing Committee. I reassure the Secretary of State that I shall not encourage my hon. Friends unduly to delay the Committee stage. We have always believed that proper consideration should be given and important points should be properly aired. People on both sides of the argument would want and expect that. However, we can learn much from the harsh experience of recent months and it is important that we do so.

I remember receiving a letter from the Secretary of State—it may satisfy his inquiry about his attitude—which no doubt went to many other hon. Members as the word processor chattered. The quotation that I particularly remember is: we must not put the improvements in performance that we are achieving at risk by introducing unnecessarily disruptive changes". As a generalisation, that may sound plausible, but it was a response to my arguments for a degree of flexibility. Anyone who bothers to write the history of these matters will see, in looking back at them, that one of the main difficulties was the fact that the late Mr. Lilley did not respond to the crisis. In any event, I welcome the fact that he has been drawn to accept the right of redress.

It is important that we turn to the practical details. Schedule 2 is the part of the Bill that we shall all scrutinise. It is currently drawn up to mean that the Secretary of State may, by regulation, include matters such as access costs; the cost of long-term disability of applicants or applicants' dependants; debts arising during the course of the partnership, which were for the joint benefit of both parents; and so on. I want to make it clear that I approve of that list. It is right and proper that those details should be part of the machinery. Some interesting arguments will arise, however, about, for example, debts incurred during a partnership. Furniture purchased for the benefit of both parents may become matters for debate and issue because of continuing hire purchase payments, and so on. It is inevitable that that will happen and we must live with that.

The circumstances covered by schedule 2 are presented as a menu of what the Secretary of State may do. I assume from what the Secretary of State said in his speech that he intends to include the list in the first part of schedule 2 in the regulations that he will lay. An important distinction—I presume it is important, although the Secretary of State may want to comment on it—is contained in paragraph 4(2) of new schedule 4B relating to additional cases. The right hon. Gentleman referred to them again today and some of them are extremely important in practical terms. He made particular reference to cases in which a person's life style is inconsistent with the level of his income. That is an important example, which could lead to some problems, because such cases are often attended with great bitterness. Complexities may arise because one party or perhaps both have formed new relationships with new financial implications.

When the Under-Secretary of State replies to the debate, I hope that he can tell me whether the first set of conditions in schedule 2 will be implemented in the regulations. Will the additional cases also be subject to the regulations, or is that an open possibility?

Mr. Lilley

indicated assent.

Mr. Dewar

I note that the Secretary of State has acknowledged that the menu will be implemented in full and will be available to those who wish to use the machinery. That is helpful. I have always thought it curious that Ministers, who are always so reluctant to concede discretion to others, are so ready to exercise it themselves. On this occasion, in view of the assurances, that would be an unworthy thought.

The White Paper suggested that just a minority of cases would qualify under the system. That may be true, but I wonder whether Ministers have formed any opinion on the likely consequences. I know—I am clear about the recollection—that the Secretary of State has said to me in the past that the gate in the Australian system is too wide. I have not ticked off pedantically the conditions listed in schedule 2, but it seems that we have broadly replicated those familiar to us from the Australian system.

I am anxious to ensure that we have machinery that can handle appeals. I am conscious of what the report of the Select Committee on the ombudsman said about the disability living allowance precedent. I am also aware that, last year, there were just over 23,000 appeals concerning invalidity benefit. Ministers are now assuming that, in the first year of incapacity benefit, that number will increase to 140,000 appeals. Considerable problems will flow from that.

It may be seen as an act of disloyalty on the part of someone who earned his corn in the law, if that is not too undignified a way of putting it, but even when we deal with what are meant to be informal tribunal systems, we have a habit of getting bogged down in formality. Precedents appear; case law emerges and legal representation for those who are rather more affluent begins to be offered, even if legal aid is not available. I am concerned to ensure that the proposed system remains an informal one.

The official Australian report states:

A single review officer conducts the hearing. On the original application and response forms, each party can request alternatives: a hearing with the other party present; a hearing without the other party present; a hearing by telephone; a review based on written forms only with no personal appearance. A hearing usually lasts between 40 minutes and two hours. 'It is the Agency's intention that these hearings be conducted with relative informality and privacy.' If that will work and give quick redress and justice on the basis of common sense in the individual case where hardship or injustice is alleged, perhaps we should struggle to keep it as informal as possible.

Dr. Spink

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Dewar

For the last time to that hon. Gentleman.

Dr. Spink

On the issue of departure from the tribunal, does the hon. Gentleman accept that, although he has said that he does not want too many precedents, most of those cases will have to be determined by reference to precedents that are fixed nationally, so that there is equality of judgment throughout the country on those matters?

Mr. Dewar

That is an interesting assumption. I understand what the hon. Gentleman means; but the system has always been, or at least I have always wanted to regard it as such, one in which there is informality, in which people can represent themselves, in which the documents can speak for themselves and in which commonsense arbitration—it is perhaps more analogous to that than to other systems—emerges.

I fear that, two or three years down the road, if I ever find myself back in law practice, which is very unlikely, I will—[Interruption.] They could not resist it. Pavlov's dogs live again. That is not a reference to the hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Shaw), but, when I come to think of it, it is quite appropriate. I can imagine myself reading specialist journals reporting cases—reporting precedents. That will lead to great difficulties and dangers. I leave it there, but I urge on the Ministers the need to be careful about that.

In Australia, at least originally, when I saw the figures about 11 or 12 per cent. of maintenance assessments ended up in the review officer procedure. The equivalent here would be about 40,000 to 50,000 cases, which is an awful lot by any standards.

I notice that in paragraph 9 of new schedule 4A there is a power for the chair to sit alone. That may simply be an administrative safety valve for an emergency, but it may, however, be an interesting precedent, and something that the Secretary of State wishes to consider.

The latest estimate that I have, which reached me by fax as recently as today, is that in 1994–95 it is estimated—the year has not quite finished—that there will be 20,800 successful appeals in Australia using the review officer procedure. That is measured against the number of assessment cases to June 1995 of 287,000. I am talking about successful appeals, not the number of appeals. If that were rolled on as a precedent for this country—this might be misleading, but at least is an interesting rule of thumb—we would anticipate very large figures indeed.

As many hon. Members who have followed those arguments know, in Australia the child support system is run by the internal revenue—the tax system. I was delighted to see that printed proudly across the bottom of the page of the letter that I received from Australia was the slogan: Taxes: building a better Australia. I recommend that to the Chancellor in his current time of travail. It would be good for morale.

Mr. Lilley

I think Australia has a Labour Government, which may be associated in the public mind with taxes, and we are glad to note that the hon. Gentleman thinks that taxes and Government go hand in hand. It is a good advertisement to the electorate before the next election.

Mr. Dewar

I am delighted to be reminded that the Australians have a Labour Government. I think that the Australian precedents are very important in the specific argument, and that is one precedent that I suspect that this country will follow very shortly. I accept that we shall have to wait and see.

I shall quickly discuss a couple of matters of some importance that are related to the departure machinery—the travel-to-work cost provisions and the capital and property transfers. They are, I understand—it was confirmed by the Secretary of State—applied in a broad-brush administrative approach initially and will then become factors in the application for a departure. I welcome both. It is proper that they should be taken into account. I have no quarrel with that in principle.

The provision relating to 10p per mile over 15 miles as the crow flies would, no doubt, lead to some controversy. It is a matter of making a judgment about what is right, and I accept that the Government have that duty. We shall obviously want to consider carefully in Committee the way in which it will work, but I would certainly accept that it is in the interests of no one, in those tangled affairs, that someone who is liable to pay maintenance should be forced to give up his job. That machinery may build in some form of safeguard.

I have some doubts and concerns about clean-break settlements. I entirely accept that the proposal is an attempt to deal with retrospectivity and, as such, I think that it is important. It is unfair that settlements that were made in good faith—probably with the good faith of both parties—before the CSA was thought of should now be ignored when assessments for maintenance are being made.

I have a philosophical point to try on the Secretary of State which is of some practical importance. Let us consider a case in which a divorce settlement was made before 1993 and a capital sum was laid down by the courts that had, in part, been met by the transfer of property in a house. Is it right that, subsequently, on an entirely distinct and different point—the settlement of the maintenance payment for the child—that property transfer which was part of the court settlement between the spouses should be used to reduce the maintenance assessment? There is an important point of principle in that argument. It is one that can be considered in Committee—I say that as someone who will, perhaps, not be on the Committee.

Mr. Peter Thurnham (Bolton, North-East)

On a philosophical point, does the hon. Gentleman believe that it would be right for the Labour party to stop its traditional objections to contracting out work to the private sector, in view of the evident failure of the civil service to manage the job?

Mr. Dewar

I have heard many irrelevant and slightly smug interventions, and I do not intend to bother with that one.

A more general point that I raised in an intervention during the Secretary of State's speech is worthy of serious consideration and will, no doubt, be debated at later stages. We say that it must be a clean-break settlement prior to April 1993. But as the Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Burt), recognises, at some stage there will be cases where the court has made a settlement or where a voluntary agreement has been reached between the parties—such cases will be unilaterally referred to the agency.

It is important to consider future provision. There are other systems where, in clean-break settlements, as they are sometimes called, the property or capital transfers are taken into account in future negotiations. Under the Australian system, where there has been agreement between the parties, where it has been intended by the parties that it should impact on the maintenance settlement and that has been quantified and formally reported, if the Child Support Agency subsequently becomes involved because one of the parties starts to receive benefit, within limits, that policy is implemented. Those matters are worth considering, and I shall briefly explain why.

My view of the subject is coloured because I was once a solicitor in an ordinary practice. In my matrimonial work, I constantly found myself persuading someone that it would be common sense to transfer the house as part of the arrangements—that it would be in the interests of the children to stay on in the house in the area and surroundings with which they were familiar. In such a case, the family, on both sides of the divide, would be traumatised, but the children would be particularly damaged.

I did a reasonable enough job in persuading people that it would be sensible to agree to the transfer of the property on the basis that adjustments and compensations for that could be made in terms of other financial arrangements. The trouble now is that, because the possibility of action by the CSA at some future date cannot be excluded, the wise advice for a solicitor to give is not to transfer the matrimonial home. That is an expensive price to pay in terms of social stability and I am genuinely concerned about it. For that reason, I hope that Ministers will think long and hard before maintaining the backward-looking provision, but doing nothing in terms of looking to the future. That is a major point which is well worth considering.

Another rather odd legislative change is the maintenance bonus. The machinery is familiar: it is child of back-to-work bonus. Under the provision, the parent with care who is not deriving benefit from the increased maintenance paid because of clawback against income support can be credited with £5 per week up to a maximum of £1,000. That sum is then payable when she—in most cases, it will probably be the mother—gets a job of 16 hours per week or more.

I must confess that I understand the importance of job incentives and of encouraging people to look for work—indeed, the Labour party has plans in that regard. However, I am not sure about this provision. Maintenance is a right for the child and a duty for the parent who must pay it, and I do not think that the child's right should necessarily be dependent on whether a mother finds work.

The provision poses another danger to which I referred in relation to the back-to-work bonus when I suggested that it was not so much a matter of jam today as one of jam tomorrow and perhaps no jam at all. In this case, it is a matter not of jam tomorrow but perhaps of jam in the next century. Parents with care must have great staying power if they are to reach £1,000; it may become a millennium event for them. Some may experience a quicker return to work, but I think that it will prove be an odd and perhaps tantalising prospect for many.

If it is such a good measure, why must it be postponed until April 1997? I would have thought that it would be possible to implement it in April 1996. Even if we take a gloomy view of the Bill's passage, it will be on the statute book by April 1996. No doubt the Under-Secretary will enlighten us on that point.

I raise another point which leads to further important matters. Although the Secretary of State will deny it, I believe that the legislation represents a form of apology; it is a nod towards the great gap in the system. It fails to offer anything positive to those children of households which are dependent on income support. That concern lies at the heart of the Labour party's reasoned amendment to the Bill. We believe that the system is incomplete and fundamentally flawed and we have argued consistently for a disregard.

I have listened to the Secretary of State's points, and he will not be surprised to learn that I have not been convinced by them. I believe that our arguments have gathered strength in recent times because the unhappy truth is that those who are most at risk are least likely to benefit under the legislation. I find that very difficult to square with the call for more money for more parents for more children which formed the climax of the Secretary of State's speech. If he believes in that objective, I believe that there is a very strong case for a disregard, without which we will not achieve or exercise the social purpose of the Child Support Act 1991.

I commend to the Secretary of State the report of the Select Committee on the ombudsman, which was released this morning. It states: Targets should place efficient service to the public before savings to the Treasury. I suppose that that might be known as Pawsey's law because the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) is Chairman of the Committee. That is an important message from a Committee which, like most Select Committees, has a majority of Conservative Members. I move an addendum to the report which I believe goes hand in hand with that message: when we are dealing with social policy, social objectives should be given as great a weight as—if not greater weight than—savings for the Treasury. That is not the current position, as is demonstrated by the Government's failure to give ground to the argument for a disregard which we have consistently urged on Ministers.

Mr.Bernard Jenkin (Colchester, North)

We have been over the point in debate so often that the hon. Gentleman will probably know what I am about to say. Although the maintenance bonus is an incentive for the parent with care to return to work, perversely the maintenance disregard would have the reverse effect. Absent parents might even give up part-time work, because of the marginal benefit involved, in order to receive the disregard and become better off. Should not that perverse incentive be taken into account in Pawsey's equation, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned a few moments ago?

Mr. Dewar

Pawsey's law has become Pawsey's equation, and it may become Pawsey's theorem by the time I have finished a philosophical debate with the hon. Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin). I do not believe that a small disregard would be a disincentive for finding work. If a job were so poorly paid that the disregard became a factor, I wonder whether it would be worth having that job at all. In any event, it would be subsumed to an extent in family credit. I do not think that that is a factor.

The latest figures which were released by Miss Chant from the chief executive's offices show that in the current year 38 per cent. of maintenance is going to children and 62 per cent. to the Treasury. I freely concede that those figures are better than last year's. They are the latest figures available, and I take them at face value. However, I do not believe that that was the kind of balance that we envisaged when we first debated the matter in the early 1990s.

Mr. Lilley

The hon. Gentleman refers to philosophical points. An important philosophical point to remember is that 100 per cent. of maintenance goes to the mother with care of the child, which, in some cases, removes the need for the taxpayer to support them. The idea that the natural situation is that everyone should be supported by the taxpayer and that maintenance is jam on the cake is absolute nonsense. All maintenance goes to and belongs to the parent and the child, not to the taxpayer.

Mr. Dewar

I understand that point. I live in the practical world as well—I suppose that we all live in various different worlds. The Child Support Agency is founded on an important principle, but it also has a powerful social objective which I do not believe that it is achieving. A principal reason for its failure is the difficulty that we have just debated.

As the Secretary of State knows, we were told originally that a £10 disregard would cost £400 million. That cost then fell to £340 million and by May 1994 it had become £290 million. At the last call, it was £205 million. The explanation for that reduction was that greater sampling had taken place which showed that fewer lone parents were claiming income support. That is a somewhat vague form of words. I welcome the fact that the cost has fallen, as it obviously strengthens our case for a disregard.

It has always been assumed that we would opt for a £10 disregard. If the Secretary of State wishes to assist us by saying that he would accept a £5 disregard—he could take the £5 that he is using in his maintenance bonus calculations—according to his Department's answers, the cost would be £110 million. Although that figure is not insignificant, if he were to offset the cost of the maintenance bonus at £25 million, the cost of the disregard would fall to £85 million. If the Secretary of State opted for the £5 disregard—he cannot say that it is unimportant, because he picked that figure himself—the Opposition would welcome that as establishing the principle of the matter.

Dr. Spink

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Dewar

No; I said that I would not give way to the hon. Gentleman again and I must be a man of my word. We feel very strongly about that matter. We must help those children who are most at risk, and I rest my case on that point.

I welcome much in the non-statutory provision. The 70 per cent. of net income is no longer a guideline but a limit that cannot be broken. The Select Committee heard evidence that about 47,000 people were left with less than 70 per cent. of net income, so that measure is obviously important and it is very welcome. The suspension of fees until 1997 is a recognition of administrative failure. The question is whether they should be reintroduced in 1997. However, we welcome that moratorium.

Some of the fine-tuning in the legislation must be examined with a critical eye. In that respect, I flag the reduction in the maximum level of payment in the formula. I believe that the child should share, as fully as the maintenance formula allows, in the affluence of the parent. I am not sure about the rationale behind that reduction.

We must also remember the parliamentary question released mysteriously on 27 December which announced that 350,000 cases had been shelved as a product of the agency's desperation. According to answers to further parliamentary questions, I understand that they will be reinstated by the end of the year. We expect the Secretary of State to hold to that promise. Similarly, with regard to the deferral of cases that were to come into the ambit of the CSA in 1996, we believe that it is important to stress the word "deferral", as my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) said. There is a beguiling argument—which I suspect has been put to Ministers—that, because those people do not receive benefit and because they already have agreements or court orders, allowing a unilateral reference to the CSA would encourage them to depart from contract. That may indeed be a beguiling argument, but it would be wrong for the CSA to become an organisation dealing with those on benefit and in financial difficulties while the more fortunately placed escaped the net altogether.

Administrative problems are at the heart of the matter, often adding insult to injury. It is worth reminding the Secretary of State of the Select Committee's comment that policy deficiencies had been cruelly exacerbated by administrative incompetence". The foundation for that charge was considerable evidence of bad advice, maladministration and delay.

We must do something about the compensation that is provided for people who have suffered in this way. It is remarkable that, by the end of January 1995, financial redress had been made in only 34 cases. That strikes me as very unsatisfactory, given the enormous stress that has attended the early history of the agency.

I accept that the agency is very difficult to run, that running it has been a difficult job for all involved and that some improvements have been made, but we are still missing targets. I am concerned about, for example, the enormous difference between the number of maintenance application forms issued since April 1993—1.19 million—and the final number of maintenance assessments, which is 299,000. I realise that some 129,000 interim maintenance assessments could be included, but those cases have not yet been finalised. The number of applications cleared without assessment—403,000—strikes me as remarkably high. Many questions remain to be answered.

In only 46 per cent. of cases has it been accepted that there is good cause for details not to be given. In 42 per cent. of cases that has not been accepted, and in 12 per cent.—presumably as a result of pressure—the absent parent has been named. Already more than 16,000 cases have been referred for benefit reduction, and it looks as though that 42 per cent.—30,618 cases—will vastly increase the number. The shadow of what was initially described as a small problem is now beginning to loom.

What we all want to know is, will the Bill work? Will it contribute to stability, and help to restore public confidence? There has been so much damage and bitterness. A difficult balance is involved: the interests of the various competing parties must be traded off—for they are competing parties, as we must recognise. We cannot duck that.

According to the Government's own figures, the February 1994 changes are worth £85 million in 1995–96, £95 million in 1996–97 and £95 million in 1997–98. The new package, which looks much more dramatic, is worth £40 million in 1995–96, £65 million in 1996–97 and £85 million in 1997–98. It is worth less than the changes that were introduced in February 1994, and therefore will have no revolutionary impact.

People tend to forget that changes in exempt income must be filtered through the formula. For instance, a reduction of £20 resulting from the banding of a capital settlement can easily end up as a reduction of only £10 in maintenance; £60 can be reduced to £20. I know that averages can be misleading, but a parliamentary answer to me suggested that the February 1994 figures were worth an average of about £8 a week to those paying maintenance, while the current crop will be worth between £5 and £10.

Whether we have the balance right should be a matter for anxiety, and I suspect that we have not heard the last word on the subject. I accept—Miss Chant gave me the figure before yesterday—that the present average maintenance assessment, excluding income support cases involving a payment of £2.30 for a single child—is between £38 and £40 a week. I think that, if that amount is reduced, people may consider the arrangements a little more reasonable than they have been in the past.

I am convinced that, indeed, we have not heard the last word. I think that, even as amended, the system is incomplete and will be unable to deliver its social targets fully; hence our reasoned amendment. For all that, any contribution to confidence building is important. That is our vital task: we must convince those who fear the system that they have nothing to fear, that the administration is not their enemy and that money paid will benefit the children in whose name it is collected. That does not seem too much to ask of the system.

Dr. Spink

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Will you advise me? Can it possibly be right, according to the rules of the House, for the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) to say that he will spend another £110 million or so—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse)

Order. I can help the hon. Gentleman without his going any further. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) is responsible for his own speech.

4.55 pm

Mrs. Marion Roe (Broxbourne)

I welcome the Bill, because the evidence clearly showed that the workings of the Child Support Agency needed to be improved. I am aware that the Government have accepted most of the recommendations in the second report of the all-party Select Committee on Social Security and, in some cases, have gone even further; as a Chairman of a Select Committee myself, I fully approve of their response.

I applaud the measures contained in the Bill, which provide new help for parents with care—especially the administrative changes, which will simplify the procedures, speed up the maintenance process and encourage compliance by absent parents. Nearly all my constituents' complaints about the Child Support Agency have been associated with the agency's poor handling of cases and with inflexibility, and I am sure that the proposed changes will greatly assist. Nevertheless, I still support the principle of the Child Support Act 1991 that parents should pay for the maintenance of their children to the extent that they can afford to do so, and that taxpayers should have to help only when parents do not have the means to support their children. While I commend the Government for listening to the concerns of parents with care, absent parents and the groups that represent them, I am anxious for the original intention of the Act not to be forgotten.

As the House knows, I have always considered it important for both sides of the story to be presented. I must tell Ministers that, for example, many lone parents with care feel that by limiting the maximum payable under the formula, the Government are signalling that rich absent parents do not have to share their wealth with their first children. It is vital for maintenance assessments to be both fair and consistent, but I regret to say that many lone carers have come to believe that those who oppose the agency's work have used unacceptable tactics to press their case, and have bullied the Government into succumbing to some of their demands.

I personally have received a great deal of spiteful and threatening mail from anti-CSA groups as a result of expressing the views of lone carers in the Chamber. The latest communication that I have received from the "Network Against the Child Support Act" informs me that supporting the Act could cost a Conservative Member of Parliament his or her seat. Together with the letter, a list of Conservative Members is being circulated to NACSA members with the heading "Up and At 'em", and the instruction that it is time to strike because

There's plenty you can say to concentrate the mind of any insecure Tory politician. It would appear from the list that, fortunately, I am not considered to be in one of the 150 most marginal Tory-held seats, but I deplore such intimidation and harassment by any organisation. I believe that it is totally improper. I am not talking about normal lobbying procedures. I imagine that similar tactics are being used on Opposition Members of Parliament, too.

I hope that the Government will take a strong line against those who seek to put unacceptable pressure on those of us who do not support the anti-Child Support Agency brigade. It is deplorable that such people should cause aggravation not only to Members of Parliament, who are perhaps used to rather vigorous lobbying and can deal with it a little better than most, but against the employees of the Child Support Agency, who I understand have been subjected to the most outrageous behaviour—for example, letters have been sent to them containing razor blades, and they have also received letters on coffin-shaped paper. I believe that I am correct in saying that anti-CSA supporters were invited to target a particular named member of the CSA's staff in the campaign of harassment, merely for doing their job.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will give me an assurance that now that the review of the CSA has been completed and this Bill is before Parliament, when the legislation is on the statute book, it will be given time to work effectively and that a period of stability will follow. More and more tinkering with the system will be extremely disruptive. We now need time for the CSA to get on with its work, without hindrance, so that a period of tranquillity can follow and the service for which it was designed—to put the welfare of children at the top of the agenda—can be delivered effectively and efficiently.

5.2 pm

Mr. Frank Field (Birkenhead)

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe), particularly as she commented about the threats made to her and to other Members of Parliament. It is a sign of how unrepresentative this place is that an Act that is clearly affecting men and women equally has largely heard the male side of the case but not the female side—the mothers concerned. Although I share her criticism of much of the campaigning tactics of those who wish to see the Act replaced, some of those people—I object to their aggressive behaviour as much as she does—nevertheless have points of which we need to take account in the Chamber. It is surprising that for a Bill as important as this so few Members should be present today. There is clearly something wrong with our representative machinery that it delivers so few to such an important debate.

I want to comment on the atmosphere in which we are having the debate, not only on how few Members are present but on how the Act is received in the country. Clearly, a large number of people—fathers, largely—disagree radically with what is being done to them. I place responsibility for that on the Treasury Bench for allowing matters to reach the state that they did before the CSA was introduced. I cannot pretend that I pick up—no matter where I go in the country—the feeling that the Act has failed. There is an appreciation of real difficulties in delivering, but I have not had people rushing up to me in the street, saying, "It is the most foul deed you have done in supporting the Child Support Agency." Many people when drawn on the issue are amazed that it took Parliament so long to act, not that it acted when it did.

My hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) made an important plea in the Secretary of State's speech: we should send the Bill to a Special Standing Committee. It important that the Secretary of State bears that in mind, even if on this topic he had a 100 per cent. record of getting it right. Given that his performance is a little less than that, I would have thought it reasonable for him to say that, if he delayed the passage of the Bill for a couple of weeks, it may give great dividends at the end of the day, as the measure would be more effective when it finally reached the statute book.

I disagreed with a number of things that the Secretary of State said and with the atmosphere that he was presenting—that we are debating almost the last major change to be made to the CSA. I would be amazed if that was true. Perhaps he will be able to fence until the end of this Session of Parliament and not be forced to introduce another Bill, but I would be totally amazed if he did not have to introduce other regulations. Our plea at this stage surely should be that, given our incompetence as a legislative Chamber in getting the measure right, we should see reforms almost as a sign of success. We should think less of our pride as a legislature and more of not roughing up people and getting their lives on the wrong end of legislation. We should see it as the prize rather than a real sense of failure.

My feeling today is that the measure still has massive support in the country, but we will need regularly to review and change it. The hon. Lady commented on the nature of the campaign outside in the country, which has been very tough. One can hardly attend a meeting with those who oppose the Act without feeling the violence that is in the air and wondering whether the meeting will remain peaceful or whether one will be up against a wall and made to feel the aggression and the sense of frustration that those people feel. We need to register that.

It is important to understand why some people feel so strongly about the Act. Clearly, no Act that takes money from men and gives it to women will be popular, but the Government do not come to the House with clean hands. On a number of occasions, I asked about the collapse of maintenance for women on income support, to be met only by puzzlement by Ministers on the Treasury Bench. I wrote about it.

The Government took action only when taxpayers were asked to pay 4p in the pound on income tax to meet the costs of raising children when one parent had deserted them. Not only is that a pretty horrendous sum for taxpayers to find—largely through the Government's inaction to work the liable relative section effectively—but it sent out a message to men in the country: the Government were not terribly interested whether they paid maintenance or not. The number of our constituents being chased was falling. The informal bushfire message was, "Don't worry. Start the second family. The Government won't chase you. You won't hear any more." On the basis that they did not expect to pay maintenance, a large number of men started second families and thought that they could manage.

The Government panicked because the reaction of those men cost taxpayers 4p in the pound and letters started to arrive from the Child Support Agency. The iniquity of people caught by a retrospective Act and those whose marriages break up and who know that the agency exists are major sources of grievance. I hope to return to that theme.

There are some good measures in the Bill and as the Select Committee proposed some of them, it would he ungracious of me not to mention that. The way in which the Government have got off the hook of giving a maintenance disregard is ingenious, although the timing is ingenious only to the Government and not to families. Instead of a disregard which would have been a disincentive for mothers who were returning to the labour market, there is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) said, a child back-to-work bonus called the child maintenance bonus.

Why will the back-to-work bonus come into operation in 1996 while the child maintenance bonus will not begin to operate until a year later? Is that because the Secretary of State lost out at the Cabinet table while his colleague at the Department of Employment got his legislation through? Women who benefit from the measure will have to have been on benefit and their ex-partners paying maintenance for eight years before they can reap the maximum return. That takes them to the year 2001. If the Secretary of State had thought that although that was not the solution it was at least an incentive to help mothers back into the labour market, he would have displayed a greater sense of urgency over this small but important reform. Perhaps the winding-up speech will explain that.

The second issue is the deferral of cases. Somehow the statement was timed to be made just before Parliament rose for Christmas and we could not question the Secretary of State. I thought that it covered not only non-benefit but benefit cases. I will happily give way if I am wrong about that. We are not talking only about those who have so far featured in the debate, people whom the Secretary of State somehow thought were of less concern because they were not costing the taxpayer and would not be helped by the measure. It also covers those women who have failed to return their maintenance application forms. That is the hidden part of the collusion which the Government are clearly aiding and abetting. I shall come to that in a moment.

When we add the deferred cases, which were announced just before Christmas, to those that have been announced since we get a grand total of more than 500,000 families whose cases have been deferred under the regulations. The Secretary of State looks puzzled. The two figures are the 180,000 cases that we have recently been given and the 340,000 that were announced just before Christmas. It is a sizeable number. I shall deal in a moment with the collusion that is going on under the Act.

In effect, the Secretary of State has announced that he is deserting those mothers who have managed to get back to work. Because they have had a maintenance settlement in the courts, he is saying that they do not need the services of the Child Support Agency and can go back to the courts. But the reason for the Child Support Agency, at least according to the Secretary of State, was that the courts were failing in that they were arbitrary, that people, and especially mothers, had great difficulty in getting their cases heard fairly, and that settlements were absurdly low.

Of course some mothers are leading their former partners a song and dance, but that is not generally the case and it is not the general impression that we get in our constituency surgeries about how the courts operated. Some fathers were represented in court and some mothers were not, and courts too readily accepted the father's costs of getting to and from work and agreed on very small maintenance payments. The totally unsatisfactory way in which the courts behaved, especially towards women with children, was one of the reasons for the establishment of the Child Support Agency.

It does the Secretary of State no credit when he tells a large number of working women who do not depend on benefit and who are doing exactly what he wants them to do, that they should not worry about the CSA not helping them because they can use the courts. It is not good enough for the Secretary of State to support people while they do precisely what he wants them to do, and then desert them at this stage because it is inconvenient to take them on to the books.

When the Minister kindly allowed me to intervene I asked, "What does referral mean? Does it mean that the files will be closed?" No, it means deferral. It means that there will be no action on any of those cases before the election at the earliest. Goodness knows how long after the election it will be if the Government are returned. Today we are formally deserting large numbers of working women who are trying to bring up their children. When one thinks sacramentally about what the agency does, it is clear that that will give powerful messages to women on benefit. They will ask how the Government find it so easy to desert those who have done precisely what the Government want them to do. If I were bringing up children and dependent on benefit I would think much harder about whether going back to work was sensible.

When the Under-Secretary replies to the debate he must give us some hope that those women are not to be cast out into political limbo but that there will be a timetable for bringing them back within the arrangements of the agency so that they can use it to get redress and decent maintenance.

Thirdly, I shall deal with the important question of collusion about which the Select Committee and hon. Members have warned the Government. Many parts of the legislation were wrong but we got right the protection for those women who would be threatened with violence by their ex-husbands or ex-partners if they tried to enforce a maintenance order through the CSA. Nobody who lives in the real world knew when we were passing that important safeguard that it was open to abuse. A handful of deferred cases has now risen to 16,000 in which the agency believes that both partners are colluding to defraud the taxpayer. That is sickening news for taxpayers, but it is also alarming for those women who have correctly claimed that an ex-husband or partner is threatening them not to enforce CSA orders on that person. They must know that as the number of people taking the taxpayer to the cleaners escalates, the patience of this place will clearly break. The safeguards, therefore, that we rightly put in place for women under threat of violence from ex-partners may be changed.

I make a plea to the Secretary of State. I ask him to announce quickly changes in what is required from separated parents who claim that they cannot fill in the form for fear of being beaten up. Would it be unreasonable to expect such individuals at least to have told the police that they have been threatened? The agency should ask for that piece of information before accepting at face value that someone is being threatened with violence if they continue in their wish for the Child Support Agency to become involved.

I believe that there is already one mother with children by three different partners who is telling the agency that her third partner, just like the other two, has threatened her with violence if she goes ahead with her application. As the rules stand at the moment, there is no automatic procedure to protect officers when dealing with such people. I hope that before the number of cases reaches 30,000, 50,000 or 100,000, as it will unless the procedure changes, we shall hear some comments from Ministers—before the Bill is given a Second Reading and before it goes into Committee. It is crucial that safeguards are put in place not merely for taxpayers, but for women who are genuinely in fear of their lives if they give information to the CSA.

I now turn to the unfairness to parents to whom the Act is being applied retrospectively. I again underline the point I made at the beginning of my speech about the comments made by the hon. Member for Broxbourne. She said how offensive most hon. Members have found some of the tactics of those who have campaigned to get the Act off the statute book. The campaign has probably taught male Members more about some of the violence that women have to put up with in marriages than any other tutorial to which we could be subjected. That does not mean that some of the sheer frustration of people who think that their lives are being ruined is not justified in some respects.

The Government lost interest to a large extent in chasing fathers whose ex-partners were picking up supplementary benefit or income support. Under this Government, the percentage of single parents on benefit who had a maintenance order to help offset the cost to taxpayers more than halved. That was the message going out to the country. This Government, who talk tough, are anything but tough when it comes to it. The message was that it did not matter. One could start a second family and one would not hear any more. One could expect the whole of one's income to go to that second family. People made arrangements on that basis and they feel aggrieved, with some justification, that the Government panicked at the size of the bill—4p in the pound—that they were presenting to taxpayers for the cost of single parents on income support and that they acted as they did.

The pleas that some of us have made have been simple. We have asked that we should make a distinction between families to whom the Act applies retrospectively and families to whom it has applied since it reached the statute book. Those families know perfectly well that the Child Support Agency is in existence and that all of us hope that it will work even more effectively than it is working now.

The Government's response has been that such a distinction would be too complicated. They say that it is difficult enough now, that there is enough chaos behind the scenes and that they do not want to add to the complications. I swallowed that argument until the Secretary of State came forward with plans to put a cap on the contributions from richer parents. He made that move, of course, to help parents who, in previous elections, had strongly supported the Conservative party. They are the main beneficiaries of the cap under which no more than 30 per cent. of disposable income can be taken under the formula. If, however, a cap can be applied to this group, other caps could be applied. If it is simple to apply a cap to the maximum amount of income that will be taken, it should be quite possible to have a 20 per cent. cap for families for whom the Child Support Act 1991 is retrospective. In making one concession to individuals who, in previous elections, may have supported the Conservative party rather well, the Secretary of State clearly showed how we could also, with the minimum of fuss and difficulty, and without interrupting the formula, provide a 15 per cent., 20 per cent. or 25 per cent. cap for those for whom the Act is retrospective.

I do not believe that some of the anger will go away until we recognise that it is a gross injustice for any Parliament to tax retrospectively. That is what we have done with the Child Support Act. It is important to deal with that partly because of the sense of grievance felt by many fathers. It shows up at meetings, as the hon. Member for Broxbourne explained; I have participated in such meetings as well. There is also something much more important at stake than ministerial pride or even the pride of the House of Commons. The importance of the Act is that it is not just about trying to cap the contribution that taxpayers make towards the support of single parents although, as I have tried to explain, the Government allowed that bill to get out of hand. It was long overdue for steps to be taken to limit the growth of expenditure in a manner that did not put at a disadvantage the women and children who had been deserted.

As I said in the previous debate, we are, for the first time, making a change in the whole direction of the welfare state. At one time, the House of Commons would take to itself more power and more responsibility. We are now putting responsibility back into the country, into families and individuals, and we are saying, "This is your decision and you must live by it." That is an important change. We are now thinking about the impact of legislation on character, an aspect that we have lost in the past 30 years. We should not throw away the reform of the Child Support Agency too quickly.

My plea is this. Although the Bill is important and although I hope that it speeds on to the statute book after proper and open discussion, I cannot believe that it can or should be the last change we make. When we are dealing with the most intimate side of people's lives, we should be more than willing to come back to the House with reform measures when we find that things are not working properly. It is a foolish politician who dabbles in this area who thinks that he has somehow got the right solution. Clearly, we have not had the right solution. I would be amazed if this modest measure got the balance right now. I look forward, however, to the debates on this measure and future measures as we try to get this most important reform right.

5.28 pm

Mr. David Faber (Westbury)

I am delighted to take part in this debate and especially delighted to follow the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field). I have had the pleasure and privilege of serving on his Select Committee on Social Security since it was set up at the beginning of this Parliament. Into no other investigation have we put so much thought and so much time. No other investigation has caused us so much concern or has brought before us so many heart-rending issues as has our investigation into the Child Support Agency. It is rare that legislation comes before the House which owes so much in its entirety to the work and findings of a Select Committee. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Birkenhead for the manner in which he has chaired the Select Committee and for the constructive manner throughout in which he has taken forward the arguments about the Child Support Agency.

I have listened to comments about the Bill being committed to a Special Standing Committee. I confess that, after just three years in the House, I have no direct experience of such a Standing Committee nor do I know how it operates technically. The Social Security Committee, however, has taken an enormous amount of evidence and has already spent a great deal of time discussing the agency. Since many of the measures in the Bill have already been gone through in some detail by the Committee, I hope, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, that we shall be able to move forward to get many of those measures on to the statute book as quickly as possible to help those whom they are meant to help.

In concluding his speech, the hon. Member for Birkenhead returned to a theme with which he has dealt in the Chamber and which has run throughout the deliberations and reports of the Select Committee. The Child Support Act, as originally passed, was a major landmark in social security legislation because it redefined the responsibilities of the state and the individual. This redefining has, of course, gone on in one of the most sensitive areas of policy, involving as it does not only the breakdown of family life but the children in that family. There is no doubt that under the Act and the agency, certain responsibilities have been restored to the individual in place of the previous state support.

We hear a great deal today about rights and responsibilities and the balance that needs to struck between them. There can surely be no greater responsibility in our lives than that which we owe our children. I am therefore pleased that the Government have brought a Bill forward that reflects many of the concerns of the Social Security Select Committee and, indeed, of constituents of hon. Members throughout the House, which have been expressed in mailbags and at surgeries. It was inevitable that an Act of such a nature would arouse strong and polarised views. Similarly, its implementation was never going to be easy in the face of breaking down long-held beliefs and supposed rights felt by absent parents and parents with care. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State referred to the problems which exist in Australia and New Zealand several years after the supposedly successful implementation of their own child support Acts.

The underlying principle of the Act has been continuously supported by the overwhelming majority of hon. Members and by virtually every member of the Select Committee. Yet the practical applications of it and the operations of the agency since it was implemented have contrived to cause sufficient problems and ill-feeling throughout the country—possibly—to undermine the very existence of the agency. That is why the Government have kept its workings constantly under review. They have responded positively not only to the Select Committee reports, but to the concerns that have been expressed in hon. Members' mailbags, at their surgeries and at meetings in their constituencies throughout the country. For that reason, I believe that the agency is no longer facing the crisis that it was—possibly—a year or so ago.

It was conceivable at one time that we could have been standing here today debating the potential collapse of the agency, so great had its overload become. Over the past few months, however, the whole atmosphere and nature of the debate surrounding the Child Support Agency has changed for the vast majority of hon. Members and has changed throughout the country for all but a few die-hards who still implacably oppose the principles which lie behind it.

This Bill is, of course, part of a much wider range of packages which my right hon. Friend announced a few weeks ago in the White Paper. It is therefore only natural that today's debate should focus on some of the measures in regulations as well as those in the Bill. It is only right that the Government should act in the interests of not only the absent parents but of the parents with care and, most particularly, the very people whom this Act is supposed to help, the children.

There can be no doubt that in setting up the agency and in the Act's implementation over the past two or three years, the major problems that have faced the agency have revolved around two principal areas. They have revolved, first, around the retrospective nature of some of the legislation, which we have heard discussed today, and, secondly, around the application of the formula, which has led to high—often, indeed, impossibly high—assessments of payments to be made by absent parents.

The Act as drafted took no account of previous property or capital settlements. The so-called clean-break settlements often involved the wholesale transfer of property, very often the family home, in exchange for deliberately low maintenance payments. The arguments about clean-break settlements have been rehearsed many times in Committee and on the Floor of the House. Transfers were often made between the separating couple and very rarely reflected the true interests of the children. Of course as we all know, a clean break from our children is impossible or should be technically impossible. Even under the old court-based system, parents with care could always return to the court to have their maintenance reassessed if they so wished. Nevertheless, a combination of the misconception that clean breaks were possible and a strong sense of natural justice have combined to make this the most contentious of all issues.

The Government are right to point out that, often, such settlements are deliberately engineered to maximise the burden on the taxpayer. In many cases, however, they are not engineered and we continually heard evidence in Committee that they are a real bone of contention. Little sums it up better than the evidence that we received from the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, which told us: it is wrong, and against the rules of natural justice … to overturn agreements which everyone—the Courts and the Government—accepted at the time were final and people have organised their lives accordingly. People have got on with their lives, made new ones and it has been one of the biggest causes of antagonism against the whole of the Child Support scheme". That last sentence is most telling. For anyone struggling to get over the trauma of a separation or a divorce, the ultimate ambition is to get on with one's own life. For many, unfortunately, this legislation has made it impossible for them to do just that and has all too often opened up old wounds to which they need never have returned.

The system of departures is in clauses 1 to 9. As the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) pointed out, schedule 2 contains the real meat of the issue: the rules of departures. This system of departing from the rigorous formula which did not often allow such departures is most welcome. It introduces an air of discretion which was sorely lacking in the original legislation. The Bill proposes that the absent parent will have to prove either to the agency or, if the agency says that it is too complicated for it, to the tribunal which will be set up, that any property or capital settlement made prior to April 1993 does not fully reflect the true circumstances of that settlement.

I have no doubt that such a move will go a very long way to helping many of those absent parents who have been hardest hit by the agency, often because of the large sum of money which they have been asked to pay. I am only sorry that that requires primary legislation. I am especially pleased, therefore, that the Government have introduced alongside the Bill, by regulation, an immediate broad-brush formula change, which will be extremely helpful in the short term to some of the absent parents who are suffering the worst hardships.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State explained in some detail how the departure system will work in relation to the current formula. In addition to the issues which arise from previous property settlements, absent parents or, indeed, parents with care, as my right hon. Friend was keen to stress, may apply for a departure because of additional expenses which they may undertake and which may not be reflected in the formula. The allowance for high travel-to-work costs will be most welcome, especially in rural areas such as my constituency. Many of my constituents who live in west Wiltshire work in Bristol or Bath and often have long journeys to work each day. It has become increasingly difficult for them to survive while meeting their travel costs and increased maintenance payments. That has made many people angry. The need for primary legislation has meant, inevitably, that there will be a delay. I welcome the broad-brush allowance, which my right hon. and hon. Friends will be introducing in regulations, based on the distance as the crow flies between the absent parent's home and his workplace. That will go a long way towards alleviating, in the short term, many of the problems with regard to long journeys to work.

Other qualifying conditions for a departure from the formula should also be praised. In particular, expenses resulting from long-term illness or disability will now be allowed. That will greatly ease the worry of many absent parents who suffer such illnesses or difficult disabilities. The costs of caring for stepchildren will also, although admittedly in exceptional cases, be considered. That will help alleviate another major bone of contention that has run through the agency's workings throughout its operation.

I welcome most warmly the decision to take into account the high costs of travel to maintain contact with the children of the marriage. One of the most heart-rending problems which the agency has caused has been that which we have all witnessed in our surgeries and in our mailbags—the breakdown in communication between some absent parents and their children.

In some instances, the problem has arisen because of a breakdown in relations between the divorced parents. There is no doubt some parents with care do, however regrettably, use their children to blackmail the absent parent or to cause stress after the marriage has ended. All too often, the difficulty in respect of the contact between the absent parent and his or her child has arisen simply because the costs have become prohibitively high.

In today's society, there can be no excuse for preventing absent parents from seeing their children whenever and wherever they can within the remit laid down by a court. Children desperately need a healthy, full and loving relationship with both parents. That is sometimes all too sadly forgotten by family law practitioners and, I hesitate to say this, by the judges.

I want to refer briefly to some of the arrangements in the Bill for helping the parent with care. All too often the parent with care has been forgotten in the deliberations with regard to the agency. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State correctly highlighted—and the hon. Member for Garscadden confirmed it—that the only major complaint in the Opposition amendment is that the Bill lacks a maintenance disregard.

Members of the Select Committee are aware that the maintenance disregard divided us. I have no doubt that it would have been superficially attractive for any amounts between £150 million and £350 million to have been spent on a maintenance disregard to soften the blow. Contrary to the hon. Member for Birkenhead, I believe that the new child maintenance bonus—which the hon. Member for Birkenhead described as ingenious—is an imaginative and sensible way of giving an incentive to the parent with care to move from a benefit dependency back into work.

The bonus will accrue at a weekly rate of up to £5 and it will enable parents with care to receive a lump sum of £1,000 when they move back into work. I understand that the provision will benefit 60,000 parents with care and it would be churlish of the Opposition not to welcome it.

The Bill contains much else that is especially welcome, most notably in relation to the work burden which the agency must undertake and the efforts over the past few months to ease that burden. As other hon. Members have done so in passing, I want to pay tribute to the staff of the Child Support Agency, many of whom we found in our visits to the various offices to be among the most highly motivated staff in the Department of Social Security. The previous chief executive confirmed that point.

The staff work long hours and extremely hard. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe) said, some of the staff have been the target of quite unnecessary vilification at work, and, I am sad to say, at home. All hon. Members would deplore that.

Mr. Frank Field

I forgot to make a similar point in my speech and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to make it now. However, does he realise that one reason why the staff are so highly motivated is that this is one of the few reforms which the House has passed with which large numbers of people in the country agree?

Mr. Faber

I agree entirely: not only do large numbers of people agree with it, but we found that there is an underlying desire among those who work in the agency to make the provision work and to see that it works. They are motivated because they understand that the provision will benefit the people they are trying to help.

Dr. John Reid (Motherwell, North)

I have no criticism of the motivation of the people who work in the Child Support Agency. However, the hon. Gentleman is wrong to believe that the administration of the agency is yet anything other than a shambles. The administration is an utter shambles. Several cases were brought to my attention at the weekend. In one, a lady has been waiting six years, but she has received no maintenance despite long conversations with seven different people in the CSA. In another case, a gentleman received letters indicating diametrically opposed positions on the same day, one through me and one direct from the appeals system. Whatever the motivation, the administration is still greatly lacking with regard to the aims set by Parliament.

Mr. Faber

The hon. Gentleman used strong language when he referred to a shambles. I do not know whether he heard the beginning of my speech, but I made the point that, a year or so ago, I might have agreed with much of what he said. The agency faced a severe crisis then. However, I do not get the impression that the agency is still in a shambles. My impression is that much has been done over the past few months.

Reference has been made to the report of the Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration. In his evidence to the Select Committee on 1 February, the ombudsman noted, having spoken to the new chief executive of the agency, I formed a very positive view of Miss Chant's resolution to put matters on a firm and better footing. The agency is doing much to ensure that matters are placed on a better footing and that more people are being devoted to the job in hand to get it done.

Motivation in the agency is high. The staff need the support and help which I believe they are now receiving. We have seen a major turn around in the past few months and over the past year.

Mr. Charles Hendry (High Peak)

Does my hon. Friend agree that, whatever difficulties exist in relation to the administration of the Child Support Agency, the members of staff who deal with the correspondence and inquiries of hon. Members on behalf of our constituents have always been courteous and helpful and always try to expedite matters as quickly as possible?

Mr. Faber

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I have seen no signs to the contrary. However, in some ways, it is a sad reflection that we need a specific targeted telephone line for Members of Parliament. My only criticism of the agency is that it would be nice occasionally if some of our constituents, who clearly have great problems getting through to the agency, had the silver service that is available to us.

We have a wonderful service and the people who are targeted to look after us do their job extremely well, as do all the staff. However, it would be nice if, occasionally, some of the administrative burden was taken from us and if our constituents could obtain answers directly from the agency. That is what the new chief executive is trying to achieve. Work is being undertaken to improve the system. I am sure that the House would want to send its strongest support to those who work in the agency.

I have referred to the agency's work burden and to what the Bill does to alleviate that burden. The deferment of non-benefit cases where a court order or a written maintenance agreement was in place prior to April 1993, is most welcome. Such a decision should have been taken on policy grounds and not purely on administrative grounds. In that respect, I differ with the hon. Member for Birkenhead.

Where agreement is not reached, one parent or the other should have the right to call in the agency or to use its collection service. However, I cannot for the life of me see any reason why, where maintenance has been agreed amicably and a court order has been handed down in a proper manner, the agency should have any role to play. If the taxpayer is happy, the parents are amicably happy about the arrangement and, most important, if the children are adequately cared for within the arrangement, I see no reason why the state in the form of the agency should be involved. I hope that the deferment of those cases will be indefinite. We have not heard a date until which they will be deferred.

We have also heard talk of the 30 per cent. cap that has been put on assessments. That is an important move. Many of the public relations problems that the agency has faced have arisen out of nothing more than the total amount which the absent parent has been asked to pay. It seems right that some cap should be put on the total sum that a parent can be asked to pay and 30 per cent. seems the right amount.

The Bill and the regulations accompanying it contain other measures which reflect the views of the Select Committee and are therefore, as the hon. Member for Birkenhead pointed out, warmly welcomed. It would be churlish not to welcome them. Interest payments on arrears and the fees which were charged by the agency have caused huge resentment among absent parents. They were seen as an extra burden on top of everything else. Non-enforcement of arrears and the interest on those arrears in certain circumstances, coupled with the deferment of fees for at least two years, will help remove the administrative irritation which has created so much opposition to the agency.

My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne and the hon. Member for Birkenhead referred to the activities of the anti-CSA organisations. My hon. Friend complained that, as parliamentarians, we were unduly targeted and lobbied by those who opposed the Child Support Agency. I submit that, as parliamentarians, we are used to being lobbied and we are able to look after ourselves. Threats such as, "You will lose your seat at the next election," do not always wash with us in any case.

What is more sinister and what we as Members of Parliament, our families and those who work within the agency should not have to put up with is threatening behaviour and campaigning. I have received several personal threats. Such behaviour is simply intolerable. If people want to change the way in which the agency operates, they should concentrate on political campaigning and put any personal threats to one side.

In that context, I should like to comment on some of the press and media reporting of the issue and in particular on the few, but tragic cases of suicide which the press and media have sought to attribute to the activities of the CSA. Divorce is always traumatic; it is always extremely difficult for the people involved. In many cases, all too tragically, it may lead to suicide or suicidal feelings. It is irresponsible and wrong for the media and people associated with the campaign against the CSA to suggest that the agency was directly responsible in any way for the suicide of certain people. However tragic and desperate those cases may have been it would be wrong not to see them in the wider context of a separation and divorce, which the people in question will clearly have gone through. It was irresponsible of the media to have pretended otherwise.

I wish to sound one small note of disappointment and one word of related caution about the Bill. In its report, the Select Committee unanimously recommended that the Government consider replacing the term "absent parent" with "non-custodial parent". Throughout our report the term "non-custodial" is used. I have no doubt that for hundreds of thousands of fathers throughout the country and a few mothers, the term "absent parent" is pejorative and even insulting. I hope that the Government will reconsider the matter.

The Government's official response to the Select Committee report was disappointing. They gave the following reason: 'Non-custodial' is not appropriate for two main reasons: firstly, in the 1989 Children Act 'custody' was replaced by residence as the legal arrangement for the care of children; and, secondly, the term implies that the person with care of the child also has 'custody' of that child, which may not actually reflect the position. We could debate all day the implementation of the Children Act 1989. It would make an interesting debate for a Wednesday morning. It is one of the most abused pieces of legislation that the House has passed in recent years. It is often deliberately misrepresented by the very practitioners who are paid to implement it, from the courts down.

Although "residence" may now be the technical legal term, the term "custody" is widely understood, especially when used in the term "shared custody". I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will reconsider the matter. The term "absent parent" causes great grief to many people. It is a pejorative term and it can be considered an insulting term.

My word of warning is not directly associated with the Bill but it arises out of the Bill. The Bill highlights the appalling difficulties in dealing with social issues. At the weekend there was a great deal of media comment in which the imminent publication of a White Paper on divorce law reform was predicted. If such a White Paper is published, I have no doubt that it will broadly reflect the Green Paper that the Government published last year. If that is so, it will undoubtedly contain much that is admirable for those involved and much that is good for the children. However, I have to warn the Government that it will also contain much that is anathema to many people, especially many absent or non-custodial parents and many who have gone through the trauma of divorce. I hope that the Government will take note of the strength of feeling that has greeted the Child Support Agency and think very carefully before introducing divorce law reform on the Floor of the House.

Legislating for children and divorced couples in today's society is, I am sad to say, something that we have to do but which is nigh on impossible to achieve satisfactorily. Divorce is probably the most traumatic event that any person can go through in his or her life. It is even more traumatic than bereavement in the family. As we have seen only too accurately from the Bill and the publicity surrounding it, the problems and trauma can stay with people for many years, possibly for ever.

I congratulate the Government and particularly my hon. Friend the Minister, who has done so much to listen and act on the problems highlighted by the Select Committee and all Members of Parliament, as they have seen them reflected in their constituencies. The Bill will improve provision for assessment, collection and enforcement of child maintenance payments. It will make payments fairer and improve the service offered by the agency. Above all, I hope that it will ensure that maintenance is paid to the children.

5.56 pm

Ms Liz Lynne (Rochdale)

There comes a time with everything when it becomes beyond repair. I believe that we have reached the point at which the Child Support Act 1991 is beyond repair. We are all in favour of the principle. Right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House are in favour of all parents paying for the upkeep of their children. That is not in dispute. What is in dispute is the operation of the Child Support Agency and the Act.

The Bill before us tinkers at the edges. It does not go nearly far enough. The Government have had their chance and they have failed. The Child Support Act has had its chance and has also failed. That is why I tabled a reasoned amendment. I felt that this Bill did not go far enough. That is why I would like to see the original Child Support Act repealed. I honestly wish that the Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen had come out and said today that they were in favour of repealing the Act. I am disappointed that they were unable to do that.

Mr. Frank Field

Where does it say in the hon. Lady's reasoned amendment that that is what the Liberal Democrats propose?

Ms Lynne

As the hon. Gentleman knows, a reasoned amendment declines to give a Bill a Second Reading. Whether or not it says that it declines to give a Second Reading, that is what it does.

Mr. Field

I am aware that the Liberal Democrats, of whom I usually speak with great favour, as the hon. Lady knows, are against the second Bill. She speaks about the first Bill, which has become an Act. Why did she not table an amendment which said that she wanted to scrap the Act?

Ms Lynne

I tabled such a reasoned amendment, but because it did not relate to the Bill before the House today, it was ruled out of order. I said in the reasoned amendment that I would like to see the Child Support Act repealed. It was ruled out of order. The official Opposition also tabled a reasoned amendment. It declines to give a Second Reading to the Bill before us today. I am in favour of the principle that all parents should support their children. We have here an Act that is crumbling before our eyes, and the Government are putting a coat of whitewash on it. I do not believe that that is enough.

The Bill contains the sound of silence on many issues. My noble and learned Friend Earl Russell, in a letter to the Chairman of the Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee, said that almost every important substantive decision is left to be made by regulation and the Bill itself creates little more than a series of regulation making powers. There are 30 clauses in the Bill and three schedules, and I have counted 42 mentions of regulations, orders or "may be prescribed". That is government by decree, and it is neither democratic nor efficient. It is not democratic because we cannot adequately debate what is before us today.

Schedule 2 of the Bill deals with the creation of powers to make regulations for departures from the formula, but it does not say specifically what those powers will be. The schedule does not say exactly what will happen. It is all regulation, orders and "may be prescribed". We want flexibility in the formula, but the Government talk about departures from the formula without spelling out what they mean.

The problem with the Act was that it was totally inflexible but the Bill does not make any changes to that whatsoever, and that is why I cannot support it. How can we possibly debate a sequence of regulation-making powers? That is what we have been asked to do today. The Government may say that we need flexibility, and I agree, but we need flexibility not only in the Act, but in the Government.

Hon. Members will have received a deluge of letters and studies about how the Act is working. The majority of members of the all-party child support monitoring group, of which I happen to be the vice-chair, have been told that the Government's proposals will not make a blind bit of difference to parents with or without care. Hon. Members will still get letters about the matter and people in their surgeries who are concerned about it because this Bill will not change much at all.

The Act is discredited, and it should be repealed. It does not have the confidence of anyone it affects—either the parent with care or the parent without care. If the Act does not have the confidence of those people, how can it possibly work? The parents will not co-operate.

We have talked about a maintenance disregard, but there is nothing in the Bill for such a disregard for a parent with care. The so-called absent parent would have an incentive to pay if he thought that the parent with care was going to get more money for the child, as the child must be at the centre of the scheme.

People who lose income support can also lose passported benefits such as free school meals. The Government have come up with a maintenance bonus of £5 a week if a parent gets work for more than 16 hours. The ceiling on that bonus is £1,000, but that would quickly be eaten up by child care costs. The Government should be talking about a child care disregard and tapering benefits if they want to get people back to work.

What about the much-trumpeted opportunity for departure from the formula in the Bill? The Government say that we need more flexibility, but they still seem to be wedded to the idea of the formula. Or are they? They are not wedded to the formula for pre-1993, non-benefit cases, and they say that those can still be decided by the courts. The Government say that they might get around to those cases in the future, but they are dealing only with benefit cases at the moment because they want to get money back for the Treasury.

Departures may be allowed—in the Secretary of State's words—in certain "tightly defined circumstances". It would be up to the Secretary of State to judge—according to unspecified regulations—whether an appeal for a departure is granted. I do not believe that parents with or without care will be mollified by that.

In April, property settlements of over £5,000 will be taken into account, and that will make a marginal difference. For example, someone who has settled for £25,000 will be £9 a week better off. After 1997, more departures from the formula may be addressed.

The Act should not have been made retrospective in the first place, and that is why it is so discredited. The principle was good, but I cannot believe that it can be made to work now. People should have been fully consulted before the Act was brought in. They were not, and that is why it is in such a shambles.

Mr. Hendry

Is the hon. Lady saying that there should be no element of retrospection at all? If so, does she think that it would have been fair that an absent or non-custodial parent who got divorced the day after the Act came into force would have to pay £20 or £30 a week for child care, whereas someone divorced the day before the Act came into force would pay nothing?

Ms Lynne

I do not know whether it would have been fair, but it would have been a way to make the Act work. The reason it is not working is because of its retrospective elements. Some people have made clean-break settlements, taken out hire purchase agreements, married again and had two children by their second family. The Act did not work because it was retrospective. That proposal may or may not have been fair, but it would have made sure that the Child Support Act worked a lot better.

Mr. Frank Field

While we understand why the hon. Lady wants the Child Support Act removed from the statute book, we all know that it will not be removed. We must look for reforms, and I regard the retrospective nature of the measure as its fatal weakness. In the circumstances, will she support the idea that—as there is a 30 per cent. cap on disposable income on richer parents regarding their contribution of maintenance—there could be a cap of 20 per cent. or 15 per cent. on those families for whom the Act is clearly retrospective?

Ms Lynne

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. If the Bill is passed today, the hon. Gentleman's suggestion could be a way forward. I would like to see the Bill defeated and also the repeal of the Child Support Act, but, sadly, I think that that will not happen.

Let us look at some other matters, such as the 15-mile travel-to-work disregard. As the hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber) said, it is 15 miles as the crow flies and does not take into account the route taken to work. Nobody can get to work as the crow flies. A 15-mile trip to work makes 30 miles a day and 150 miles a week, but the money will be paid only after those 150 miles have been travelled, and at a rate of 10p a mile. No company gives 10p a mile for travel costs, and hon. Members would be extremely worried if they were offered 10p a mile for their travel costs.

I am pleased that the costs of travelling to see a child may be taken into account if there is a departure from the formula and if the regulations state that a parent can appeal against it. That does not go far enough, and it will not deal with my constituents who have been affected by the measure. A man was in my surgery the other week in floods of tears—all hon. Members will have had such cases—because he used to visit his son, who lives miles away. I doubt whether the man lived far enough away to be covered by the new measures in the Bill, but he lived far enough away from his son for it to cost him too much money to visit. His maintenance payments had increased and he told his ex-wife that he could not get there. Their divorce had been very acrimonious and when the son asked his mother why daddy wasn't coming to see him any more she said, "Because daddy doesn't love you any more". That was why the man was in floods of tears—he had telephoned his son, who refused to speak to him. It is not an isolated case, as it is happening in constituency after constituency. Now, we have this Bill and it is not good enough.

What about appeals? They will not be independent. I am glad that housing costs may be taken into account for the second family and the children of that family, but the Child Support Act 1991 was a Government initiative and it is not doing what it set out to do. I supported it in the first place because of what it set out to do. I sincerely thought that the Secretary of State and the Minister were listening to what we and the all-party child support monitoring group were saying. If they had been listening, they would have come up with a little more than we have in this Bill.

The White Paper said, "Children come first." That has a very hollow ring today. The Act is in a shambles and neither parent—the one with or the one without care—has seen any benefits from it. If the non-co-operation continues, case loads will get longer, settlements will take longer and the morale of support agency staff will get lower. People are already refusing to work for the CSA because they do not want the hassle and I cannot blame them.

The 1991 Act should not have been retrospective. Just before Christmas, 340,000 cases were deferred. The Government are indulging in crisis management. This is the second time that they have had to come to the Dispatch Box to make changes. How many more times will they have to come here to change the Act? Why do they not wake up to the fact that it is fundamentally flawed, and that parents with care and so-called absent parents alike see it as a Treasury support Act? In response to the report of the Social Security Select Committee, the Secretary of State said that they should base performance targets on benefit reduction. Even he was admitting that it is a Treasury support Act.

Children's welfare must come first, which is why I want the Act repealed. We must go back to the drawing board, reconsider, have proper consultation with all interested parties—not piecemeal consultation, or consulting and not listening—and come back with a unified family court system, which is something that the majority of people on all sides of the debate want. It has not been tried before. The Government could then set up a collection agency. They could use CSA staff if they must, but they will have to rename the agency and use it as a collection agency. Even the Children Act talked of the necessity for a unified family court system that could deal with maintenance and all family law issues. The court would have to have full investigative powers. The collection agency would have to be allowed to do its job. The Act and the courts have failed—they were not proper family courts—and no one has collected or enforced the settlements. People got away with not paying and no one bothered to chase them. We need co-operation and flexibility, and a unified family court system would provide that.

The Child Support Act has not worked because the Government did not consult properly beforehand. As I have said, and will continue to say, the principle that all parents should support their children is right but, if we are not careful, the agency will sink further if more people do not co-operate. People were hoping that, after their representations, the Government would produce something concrete so that they could say, "Yes, the Government have listened to us." But we have got this meagre Bill. I hope that in the long term we will repeal the 1991 Act and start again from the beginning with full consultation. In the meantime, I will vote for the reasoned amendment.

6.14 pm

Mr. Andrew Rowe (Mid-Kent)

I am pleased to be able to follow the hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms Lynne). I had not expected to get the opportunity to speak, as I thought that the House would be packed and we would be overwhelmed by hon. Members wishing to speak. I am pleased to find that I have a chance to join the discussion about what I would describe as the VSA, or various support agencies, because my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Social Security and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State have taken immense pains to consult and to listen to the results of those consultations. It has not been an easy row to hoe and I am obliged to my hon. Friend for accepting a number of the points that were important to me, even though I hardly flatter myself into believing that mine were the only representations that weighed with him.

The new Bill will go a long way to meeting many of the problems. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Rochdale that, if we could only repeal the Child Support Act 1991, and start again, we would have some sort of magic formula. The fact that the unified family court system has some considerable merits does not exclude the likelihood that people would come in equal numbers to our surgeries to complain about its behaviour as readily as they now complain about the Child Support Agency.

The truth of the matter is that this is a delicate part of human affairs. It is full of pain, anger, dismay and, in many cases, financial difficulty. In those circumstances, no new name or formula will eradicate people's desire to complain to Members of Parliament or anyone else who will listen. It was a bit rich of the hon. Member for Rochdale to complain that discretion was not tightly defined—the very nature of discretion is that it should not be so tightly defined, so I have difficulty with that idea.

The way in which Ministers have handled controversy over the agency is a vindication of our political system. When one sees Ministers traipsing through the Lobby late at night, or being summoned back from important international meetings to play their part in the voting arrangements of this place, one sometimes thinks that it is a barmy way to run the country. There is tremendous merit, however, in having members of the Executive drawn from ordinary constituencies and having to face their own electors and correspondents. This issue has been a good example of that.

I listened with care to my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber), who made an admirable speech. Like him, I regret the fact that the 1991 Act was retrospective, but the changes will help. It is important for us to consider the context in which the Act was brought into being. It is terribly important to remind young people of the continuing responsibility to children that they must undertake when they have children of their own.

The CSA is a tangible and recognisable statement by society that children should not be "lightly entered into"—in the words of the old Church of England marriage service—but are a continuing responsibility and are now recognised as such. Few people enter marriage with the intention of allowing the relationship to break down but, these days, thousands of people every year go into marriage with their hopes and their confidence in their capacity to sustain the relationship over a long period at such a low level that we are all paying the heavy cost of that. It is not just the financial costs, although my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State reminded us that it costs £8.5 billion to support single parents. As the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) said in a remarkable speech, that is a massive sum for taxpayers to bear. It is also a huge cost in human misery and pain, not merely for the parents, although it can be extremely costly in emotional terms, but for the children, some of whom never recover from the experience and many of whom take many years to overcome the difficulties.

We must be careful not to consider the Child Support Agency's financial remit as an isolated element in the whole business of sustaining marriage in a better way. One or two hon. Members have already said that, where good relations exist between former spouses, it is important that the CSA should respond in ways that do not damage those good relations. For example, there are endless stories about people whose good arrangements for seeing their children are in danger of being undermined. I hope that the new discretions and concessions will make that easier to deal with.

One of the reasons why the CSA appears to be an isolated element of our provisions for coping with family breakdown is cross-departmental boundaries. Given that it is now clearly predictable that, if a marriage breaks down, the parent without care will be required to pay for the maintenance of the children of that marriage, cannot that be taken into account and codified before divorce is granted? In new cases, it is unnecessary to have a long, drawn-out procedure continuing after the divorce. Manifestly, in cases where the parents were divorced before the setting up of the CSA, we can do nothing about that, but we must look carefully at making the CSA's demands part of the divorce settlement.

I am delighted that travel-to-work costs and pre-existing debts are being taken into account. Many couples enter into those financial commitments with no idea that their marriage will break up. Some couples enter into financial commitments, such as a job that involves heavy travel costs, or costly home improvements, with the desire to save their marriage, and others enter into those commitments with no idea that their marriage will break down. It has always seemed grossly unfair to expect those commitments to be totally ignored and it is a tremendous step forward that they will be taken into account.

On penalties for late payment, how willing is the CSA to accept responsibility in cases where its actions are involved in the delays? I have written to my hon. Friend the Minister about the clear case of a constituent of mine who knew that his assessment was grossly more than it should be. He offered to pay the sum that he thought appropriate, but the CSA refused to accept payment of less than its original demand. Many months later, after an enormous amount of to-ing and fro-ing—I have seen the correspondence—the CSA finally admitted that my constituent's original contention was wholly correct. Had he paid what was originally demanded, the agency would have had to repay him more than £3,000, but because it would accept nothing less, he is now being taxed with not only arrears but interest on those arrears. That is simply not on and I hope that, under the new arrangements, the agency can be flexible in that respect.

Discretion is a great historical difficulty for Social Security Ministers. Whenever new social security legislation is introduced, the desire is to have no discretion but to have clear, straightforward and simple legislation. Within 10 minutes, however, the first pressure group, whether for the disabled or some other group, presents a cast-iron case for saying that the formula cannot work and the Minister, usually to the applause of the assembled House, gives way and an element of discretion creeps in. Before long, the system is so full of discretions that everyone complains that it is grossly unfair and the anomalies are hopeless, and the Government of the day are pilloried for running a system that does not work.

That is exactly what will happen in this case. The CSA was created with a clear remit to have as crisp and clear a formula as possible, with no discretions. We have now discovered that there must be some discretion in the system. I record for posterity that I welcome the arrival of discretion, but I am fully aware that, some years down the track, we shall all complain that the system is not predictable.

I share the concern of the corn-fed shadow Minister—although he claimed to be corn fed, he would agree that he is not a chicken—that appeals may become too formal. For different reasons, he and I both have considerable experience of the children's hearings system in Scotland, which is the equivalent of the juvenile court. Given how long that system has existed—it was introduced in 1967—it has maintained a degree of informality that many courts would welcome. I hope that we can arrive at an appeals system that is as informal as possible.

I am amazed at the relatively small number of hon. Members in the Chamber for the debate. The subject has dominated my surgery week after week, and I am sure that it must have dominated the surgeries of many other hon. Members. I hope that their absence is a tribute to the recent manifest improvements in the workings of the CSA and the public's perception of it. I trust that it has nothing to do with any fear of intimidation by opponents of the Act, about which we have heard from other hon. Members. It is important to draw attention to the disgraceful behaviour of some people opposed to the CSA.

It is a symptom of one of the weaknesses in our current political system that single-issue groups are becoming increasingly important within it. I accept that they frequently provide Back Benchers with helpful information and useful ammunition for use in debates and in Committee, because we cannot draw upon the resources of Whitehall Departments for our research. Some of those groups, however, have got so carried away by their own effectiveness and organisation that they are becoming violent, threatening and damaging to the political process. Whether it be animal rights, the CSA or anything else, I am now predisposed to vote against violent pressure groups, almost regardless of the validity of their argument, simply because, in a democracy, I regard their actions as disgraceful. After all, those pressure groups have great access to considerable powers of persuasion without going down that violent route.

The Bill is welcome because it enshrines a great many of the improvements for which hon. Members on both sides of the House have lobbied Ministers. I commend the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary for having taken on board so many of the anxieties that have been expressed. I am sure that the hon. Member for Birkenhead is right: we shall need to revisit the system when the changes to it have settled down. Should we need to modify it yet again, no one should regard that as a defeat.

I would be sorry if the CSA was regarded as separate from the rest of society's efforts to keep families together. Changes in the way in which we support families and children and those threatened by divorce should be taken into account when we consider the work of the CSA. Its work should not be corralled into a separate box, because it impinges greatly on the way in which families, and second families in particular, function. The CSA's very existence says something loud and clear about the way in which British people view the breakdown of a marriage.

6.32 pm

Mrs. Jane Kennedy (Liverpool, Broadgreen)

The hon. Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) commended the Under-Secretary. Perhaps I should just add that, faced with the summer Government reshuffle, he was one of the few Ministers who viewed that event almost with happiness. It is credit to his stoicism that he has ridden the storm and continues to take responsibility for the Child Support Agency.

I did not agree with the hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms Lynne), except about the number of regulations, diktats and orders that the Government issue after a Bill has been passed. The Government's growing tendency to rely on such regulations is unacceptable. I do not agree with the hon. Lady that the CSA's current operations are a shambles. That is far too strong a word, given the problems that the agency has faced.

I am more in agreement with the hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber). A year ago, I, too, came close to thinking that the CSA was almost beyond hope. I thought that if it were not to be scrapped, it needed to be reformed radically. A year later, I am convinced that we can make the system work, although I do not believe that the Bill goes far enough to achieve that.

One of the problems with the CSA is almost a repeat of those encountered with the disability living allowance. A completely new computer system had to get up and run for the United Kingdom without any pilot project. The staff had to amend that system as they worked, so the backlog which built up is partly due to that untried computer system. Now the system is beginning to work.

I know about the gradual success of the system because I visited the local CSA centre in Birkenhead under a fortnight ago. That centre deals with all the cases from Wales and the north-west of England. It employs 800 staff—700 whole-time staff—and deals with about 1,500 case applications a week. At any one time, 40,000 cases are awaiting assessment, so the centre's work load is enormous. In addition to those staff, there are 1,700 field staff nationally, about four of whom are attached to each Department of Social Security office.

Those field staff, who are often overlooked, are among the most important staff of the agency. They represent the CSA's interface with the public. They meet people to discuss their applications and they already exercise some discretion as they negotiate the terms on which arrears are paid. I know from the staff that, in some cases, it will take 15 years for the current arrears to be paid. That is a symptom of the strain that the system has been under as staff have tried to get it off the ground.

Those field staff will be charged with a further discretion, as they will chase down the relevant data and trace those absent fathers who have proved difficult to track down. I know from my discussions with the staff that they now enjoy higher morale than previously, because they feel that they have gone through the trough and have come out the other side. They now believe that they are far more successful than the courts ever were in tracking down parents who have failed to take responsibility for their children.

I disagreed with the hon. Member for Rochdale, who argued that we should abandon the current system in favour of a new court-based one. Given the two years' experience gained by the CSA, to abandon it for something new presents me with another nightmare. I would rather the current system was made to work. A court system would not necessarily deal with parents who deny parentage. How would it deal with a mother who did not marry the father of her children? The CSA is seeking to deal with such difficult cases and a court system might be unable to tackle them.

The agency staff to whom I spoke welcome the proposed changes to regulations, but they believe that the current formula is still too complex. Although the staff understand the hugely complex calculations that they must make, they are thankful that a computer system does those calculations for them. The calculations are made to the penny. As a result of minor changes to the data fed into the system, two separate calculations can be made, resulting in two quite different maintenance assessments. I suggest that that arrangement is one of the reasons for the large number of wrong assessments, for which the CSA was criticised in the recent report by the Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration. Has it ever been considered that calculations should be made to round pounds rather than pennies? That might not solve all the problems, but it might lead to fewer wrong assessments being made.

The staff told me that they felt that the proposals in the White Paper demonstrated that they, as the staff who must implement our proposed changes, had been listened to for the first time. I hope that the Government will not consider the Bill as the final reform of the CSA. I hope that they will continue to review its work and, if necessary, return to the House where it is obvious that further change needs to be made. I do not think that that is a reason to criticise the Government. It is something to welcome, and it demonstrates an openness that we might wish to be shown in other aspects of the implementation of Government policy.

I ask the Minister to take special care, as the new changes are introduced, to ensure that the targets that are set for the agency are achievable. Staff must play an important part in consultation before the targets are set.

The Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration has said that efficient service should be given higher priority as a target than benefit savings. I was told that benefit savings were notional anyway; therefore, they were difficult targets to achieve and perhaps, for the same reason, could be easy targets for the agency to say that it had achieved. The value of benefit savings as targets is questionable.

I wish to echo and emphasise the opinions expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) in the intervention that she made on the speech of the Secretary of State, when she called for greater support for civil servants, especially those who take telephone calls from members of the public.

I was able to visit the call handling section at Birkenhead, where there are 50 people, the newest staff. That is the highest pressure point of the agency, and I watched the staff taking calls and heard them describe the problems that they have to tackle. They receive initial training and are then given hands-on work to do and learn as they go along.

Thought must be given to ways in which we can support the staff, who tell me—I was astonished when they said it—that all the telephone calls that they receive from absent parents are abusive. I said, "Surely not all?" but all the absent parents who telephone have wound themselves up to such an extent that they ring the agency, and they are abusive or angry and aggressive in their interactions with staff.

The staff told me that many of the telephone calls from parents with care are also abusive. If the calls are not abusive, they are from people who are upset. Frequently, the staff become upset when they find themselves talking to people at the other end of the telephone who are in desperate circumstances.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Alistair Burt)

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, to whom I could listen for a long time, for giving way. Did she sense, as I did when I was there, listening to exactly the same things, that one of the reasons people were previously so angry when they came on the telephone was that they had tried to get through and failed so often? The system that we have introduced, which is in use in Birkenhead and employs many more people on the telephones, cuts through that. People are not now so wound up and, after they have spoken to the team, they feel much better about matters, often because they have been able to get through and to have a simple question answered.

Mrs. Kennedy

I think that that would be borne out by what I was told, but I was given the impression that people were full of anger or were upset when they first came on the telephone. The staff on the receiving end had to deal with that. As the Under-Secretary says, better systems are in place now. Staff are able to talk people down from their high emotional state, but that takes a toll on staff. Thought needs to be given to what training and support can be given to the staff who do that work.

Disappointingly, the threats continue. I had gained the impression that the hoo-ha had, to an extent, died down. At one time, we received a great deal of mail about the Child Support Agency, but it appeared to slacken off. However, staff at Birkenhead told me that they continue to have to cope with unacceptable behaviour from some of the people with whom they deal. Indeed, an X-ray machine has been installed at Birkenhead to help to intercept, as they come through the door, the fake bombs that have been sent to the agency, and the razor blades—which have been mentioned—which continue to be received frequently, so much so that a team of people check the mail and open it. That is all that those people do, all day long. Unfortunately, the X-ray machine does not intercept the excrement that is occasionally posted to the Child Support Agency offices.

It is important that Members of the House understand the pressures that we have imposed on civil servants as we expect them to carry out perhaps the most controversial piece of legislation and the most dramatic change in the way that we deal with families in our society.

As recently as Christmas, threats were made to some of the staff and the families of staff, especially those who have been unjustly identified in the media. I wish to add my name to those of hon. Members who have commended the work of the staff and condemned the actions of those who have threatened or endangered in any way the health and well-being of the staff, who have simply tried to do the best job that they can.

It is not all doom and gloom. When I met the agency staff, I became aware of how much more positively they were feeling. They are starting to receive thank-you letters. The agency's work is not universally disregarded, and a range of people benefit from it; in particular, parents with care are starting to benefit.

I am told that about 95 per cent. of the parents with care with whom the Birkenhead office deals are women. Those women are starting to write to agency staff to thank them when their maintenance is sorted out. Those parents with care are also able to say that, because maintenance is now part of the benefits on which they depend, they have options that they did not have previously, when they depended entirely on means-tested benefits. Some women have written to say that they are going to college. Some are even taking jobs, because there is less fear of the poverty trap. Some parents with care say that they feel better about their position.

Unfortunately, that is not the case for all parents with care. Not all absent parents are happy, and people on benefits whose ex-partners—or the absent parents of their children—are on benefits receive little or no help. I am told that Birkenhead has abandoned only those cases where the parent with care has failed to return the form—much has been said about why parents with care do not return the forms—or where no maintenance can be paid. Those are cases where the absent parent is on benefit and there is little financial return for the child or the parent with care or, indeed, the Treasury—the taxpayer. However, staff at Birkenhead told me that they would not abandon a case where the parent with care insisted that some attempt be made to gain maintenance.

Perhaps we need to accept the fact that the agency will not be able to sort out the feckless fathers—if one wants to call them that—whom many hon. Members on both sides of the House wanted to be brought to book and made accountable for their own children. As there is no financial benefit to the taxpayer, the temptation has been to abandon those cases altogether.

On page 10, the White Paper talks about producing a scheme designed to ensure that the system produces fair and consistent results". I want to take issue with the use of the word "fair". It has been used by speaker after speaker in the debate, and I wonder why we seek to invest with fairness a system that will continue to implement a rigid formula, although with some discretion.

The word "fairness" has certain connotations. When one is dealing with family breakdown or the type of very sensitive circumstances with which the agency deals, there will always be someone who is able to say, with some justification, "This is not fair," so I object to the use of the word. We need to take more account of whether the system works efficiently and effectively than of whether it is fair. By that, I am not saying that it should be unfair; it is simply that connotations accompany that word.

In the most recent major debate that we held on the issue, one hon. Gentleman—I hope that he will forgive me for not remembering who it was—spoke about not requiring the Child Support Agency to exercise the judgment of Solomon. It does not seek to apportion blame; it simply seeks to calculate maintenance on the basis of a formula.

For me, the hardest and least fair cases are those where the absent parent is a man who has, in his terms, lived an honourable life. He is married with children and his wife leaves him, takes the children and, in some cases, the house as well. He sees himself as having lost everything. He does not deny that he is required to pay maintenance; he wants to pay maintenance because he sees it as a continuation of his responsibility. In some cases, his former wife worked, so between them they maintained their home. After the break-up of the family, she may find a new partner who is wealthy enough for her not to work, so she gives up work. The absent parent finds that his own maintenance requirement is increased because his former wife has given up work. In no circumstances could one persuade that person that the case was fair. We must disentangle the concept of fairness, and say that it is the right and proper maintenance for him to pay as his children will benefit from his wealth and income as a result.

The question we need to ask ourselves about the Bill is whether the changes proposed—either in regulations or the Bill—increase the agency's efficiency and performance. The Bill contains half the changes to child support announced in the White Paper and allows for departures from the usual rules for determining maintenance assessments. Those departures will be allowed only in cases where the absent parent incurs necessary expenses that are not allowed for in the formula and where failure to take them into account would result in hardship.

How do we define hardship? The White Paper states that it will not be defined in arithmetical terms. Who will define it? Will the agency staff define it? The system will result in a number of appeals. The Child Support Agency will first decide whether a departure from the formula should be allowed. If either parent is unhappy with the decision, he or she can ask for the matter to be considered by the child support appeal tribunal.

If the independent tribunal service deals with appeals, will it deal with those appeals as well as those arising from the new incapacity benefit and from the jobseeker's allowance? I foresee a strong likelihood of logjams of appeals. Sufficient resources, adequate training and supervision must be provided if past mistakes in dealing with such backlogs and logjams are not to rear their ugly heads again.

Mr. Rowe

I am listening with great attention to the hon. Lady's interesting and constructive speech. Her point about logjams of appeals is important. Is there not scope at least for considering whether, if it becomes apparent that many people are appealing for no reason other than to try to defer making any payments, there should be a mechanism for trying to control that?

Mrs. Kennedy

I hope that in Standing Committee there will be an opportunity to examine the appeals procedure, which will be put under great pressure as a result of the changes. I take note of what the hon. Gentleman says. In my experience of dealing with appeal tribunals, it is the length of time that it takes for tribunals to be set up, and evidence to be collected and presented, that creates great problems. If there were a sifting system before that part of the process, would it be necessary to have an appeals procedure against a wrong decision at that stage? We must look at that possibility, but we must not make the grounds for appeal so restrictive that we build up more hostility to the agency and its work. We need the appeals system and its decisions to be supported and abided by, by both parents.

There will be a number of grounds for departure from the formula. There are the travel-to-work costs, the cost of caring for stepchildren, which is welcome, certain debts from the former relationship and the existence of pre-April 1993 capital and property settlements, which is not currently reflected in the assessment. Those factors are not listed in the Bill but are some of the items that will be determined by regulation.

I have three criticisms of that system. First, although regulations would allow for flexibility, I am concerned that there will be a consequent lack of parliamentary scrutiny of them. Secondly, as the Child Poverty Action Group states: we are concerned that the system of departure is rather convoluted, that CSA clients who are already confused by the different review and appeal routes will be even more perplexed as to what is happening as a result of the changes. I would go along with that. My third criticism is that, despite the promise of more staff, the agency may not be able to cope with the number of applications for departure that are bound to follow. Account must be taken of that.

Other changes to child support that are not contained in the Bill but are to be made by regulations are due to take effect in April. I understand that they have not appeared in draft form yet. It is questionable whether they can be effectively implemented by an already over-burdened agency. The changes appear in the White Paper and we have a summary, but they have not yet been published—

Mr. Burt

They were published last week.

Mrs. Kennedy

I beg the Under-Secretary's pardon. I must obtain a copy. The point that I am making still holds good—the fact that the agency will have to have the changes ready for implementation by the end of April will place it under a lot of pressure. Thought must be given to a system that is to be introduced across the United Kingdom. Any absent parent who has had a complaint will look to the new regulations to see if his or her case can be reviewed. The backlog of cases will be enormous if the system is not handled properly.

As the departure system requires primary legislation and will not be introduced until at least 1996, the changed regulations allow for a broad-brush adjustment to the formula to allow for past property settlements. Where the absent parent has transferred more than £5,000 of his or her share of equity, the allowance will fall into three bands. That allowance recognises only that the transfer took place; it will not precisely reflect the settlement. Only when the new departure system is introduced will we be able to give more detailed consideration to such cases.

One of the reasons I shall support my hon. Friends' amendment, not the Bill's Second Reading—

Mr. Dewar

That is a relief.

Mrs. Kennedy

I am sure that my hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench will be relieved to hear that.

The measure helps absent parents more than it does parents with care and contains nothing to combat the poverty of lone parents and their children. The lump sum bonus will not be introduced for two years, unlike the provisions for absent parents, which are to be introduced in four weeks. I concur with the criticisms of that issue made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field). There is no mention of a maintenance disregard and absent parents on income support can, at present, have £2.30 deducted from their benefit in lieu of child maintenance, bringing them below subsistence level. The Social Security Advisory Committee has expressed concern at the increasing number of deductions that can be made from benefits—a retrograde step.

In previous debates on the subject I have asked for special consideration of, and investigation into, the effects on children of family break-up. Much of what we have been doing has focused on the costs and the financial benefits and returns for children. I asked for the Rowntree trust to be commissioned to carry out further research into the effect on children of family break-up. The welfare benefit system puts increasing pressure on families in poverty and makes it financially beneficial for partners to break up and live separately. We should be looking to reform that system so that lone parents are given support and helped out of the poverty trap. But parents who stick together should not be financially disadvantaged, the one compared to the other. We have an opportunity to do that. We cannot achieve that goal with the Bill, but the issue is becoming increasingly important.

Last week in Kensington in my constituency I went on a police patrol with my local constabulary. As well as the pleasure of driving around in a fast response car with flashing lights and going through red lights, I witnessed the patrol dealing with some serious incidents. One such incident the police described as a disturbance—I would have called it a riot. Sixty young people with an average age of 12 were fighting in a terraced street in my constituency. Although their average age was 12, most of them were drunk. They had got the alcoholic drink from somewhere—the police are investigating that. Problems are being created in our society as the result of the breakdown of families and one of the contributing factors is our benefit system. It behoves us to look at that system carefully to see whether there are ways in which we can reform it and make such incidents less likely to happen.

6.59 pm

Mr. Charles Hendry (High Peak)

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate on the Child Support Bill. I am particularly pleased to follow the hon. Member for Liverpool, Broadgreen (Mrs. Kennedy), whose speech typified the sensible and constructive approach that most hon. Members have adopted to the debate. The only sad part of her speech was when she informed us that she would not vote with the Government tonight. Until that point, many of us had been seduced by her charm into thinking that she might; but we must live with that disappointment.

The Child Support Agency has been the subject of letters which have filled our postbags, and it has prompted many visits to our surgeries over a considerable time. Although we are now seeing a diminution in the number of such cases, hon. Members must not underestimate the importance that should be attached to reforming the workings of that agency.

At the outset of my speech, I pay a warm tribute to the work of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. They have listened to all reasonable arguments in an effort to ensure that the agency will work better, while the principles that lie behind it are retained. Their work has built on that of the Social Security Select Committee under the leadership of the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field). Their joint approach characterises the desire to find a way forward that enshrines the principles of the Child Support Act 1991 and of the agency while making the agency more acceptable to the people who are affected by its decisions.

It is with sadness that I exclude from my tribute the speech by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms Lynne). She did nothing to add to the value of the debate. She gave a typical Liberal commitment. She said that we could afford to pay more benefits to more people but that no one has to pick up the tab. In the best Liberal tradition, she promised everything to everyone in the knowledge that her party will never be in a position to deliver anything.

I also pay tribute to the work of community groups which, in most cases, have lobbied sensibly. I include in that group the child support action group in my constituency. Its approach to the issue could not be more different from the aggressive and objectional attitudes of some extreme groups elsewhere. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe), I deplore completely the attitudes of the most extreme groups and the way in which they have intimidated many people. For example, they reminded my constituents that I hold a marginal seat—as if I were not aware of that already. I think about it every day and I shall live with that fact until the next election, when I shall increase my majority by leaps and bounds. That is only a small example of their intimidatory tactics.

We should be aware of another worrying factor. Even the more responsible groups which oppose the Child Support Agency have sought to create unnecessary fear. People who are worried about being investigated and who have turned to those groups for advice and support have received an unrealistically high estimate of the demands that the agency would place upon them. Every constituent who has been given a figure by a local group has discovered later that the real amount that he is expected to pay is much less than he feared initially. Even those groups which have sought to be more responsible than others have created fear in the community, and I believe that the House should deplore that consequence.

Today, we are examining the way in which the Government have listened to people's concerns and have decided to take action to ensure that the principles of the Act are retained while the agency is made more workable. Many hon. Members are concerned about the way in which the agency has affected those people who have acted responsibly towards the children who no longer live with them.

For example, a father in my constituency bought a house for his ex-wife following the marriage break-up. She then sold the house, spent the proceeds of the sale and moved from Derbyshire to the Western Isles of Scotland where she lives on income support. He made what he felt at the time was an extremely responsible commitment to his children, but found subsequently that he was being chased for more money and that he could no longer afford to visit his children in Scotland. That is patently wrong and I welcome the fact that capital transactions and gifts from one partner to another will be taken into account in determining the level of maintenance payments.

I am also satisfied by the inclusion in the legislation of changes to travel-to-work rules. In my constituency—which is a commuter belt—people travel significant distances to work. However, we may wish to examine in Committee the limit of 15 miles as the crow flies. The Peak district is a mass of small, narrow, winding roads and one cannot travel to work as the crow flies because the old footpaths which were built on those routes are not widely used by commuters. Therefore, people travel significantly greater distances than 15 miles even though the actual distance between two points may be no more than that.

I welcome the recognition in the legislation of the fact that debts from former relationships should be taken into account on occasion. Two of my constituents whose marriage broke-up had bought a house with a small mortgage, but they borrowed a significant amount of money to renovate it and make it livable. In those circumstances, I think that it is reasonable that debts and loans should be taken into account.

The Government have recognised many of the practical problems which resulted from the original workings of the Act. I welcome, too, the fact that the full mortgage will now be taken into account when there is a second family. That will help those who have second families by taking into account the actual costs involved in maintaining them.

The legislation contains a number of practical measures which will enable absent parents to provide more realistic support for their children. Arrears in payments will be limited to six months where the Child Support Agency has been at fault. That measure is extremely welcome, as is the fact that no fees will be charged for those assessments that are made between April 1995 and April 1997.

The cap on amounts payable to 70 per cent. of income should prove extremely helpful. In the past, hon. Members have told their constituents that, in principle, they should not expect to pay more than two thirds of their salary in maintenance, only to find that they have had to pay much more than that. The 70 per cent. cap will be a great comfort to many people who are worried about the extent of their monetary commitment.

I believe that the measures represent responsible and reasonable steps, particularly where the legislation will be retrospective. Like some of my colleagues, I have general reservations about retrospective legislation. However, I have been persuaded—I made the point by way of intervention during the speech by the hon. Member for Rochdale—that it would not be fair to treat those who were separated or divorced after the Act came into force differently from those who were divorced before the operation of the Act. That would not be good legislation and it would create rifts within communities, workplaces, villages and towns. We were correct to avoid that consequence, and we welcome the Government's response in recognising people's legitimate concerns. There is always a danger with retrospective legislation that people will have moved on and built new lives based on their current and foreseeable circumstances.

My hon. Friend the Minister knows of a constituency case with which I have been dealing. My constituent had what he believed was a cast-iron legal case: he had passed over property to his wife, and made a commitment to pay 5p a year towards the maintenance of his children in addition to a significant capital transfer. He assures me that he would never have made the commitment if he had been advised that at any point in the future it could be opened. He now finds that, because of the workings of the Act, the position has changed. My constituent may have been badly advised by his lawyers—I suspect that he was—but I think we are right to recognise that, having made a significant capital transfer in the past, he is less able to pay than others who have made no such transfer.

I have many reasons for supporting the Bill, because of the reasoned way in which the Government have put their case. One reason, however, is the flawed argument advanced by the Opposition. Many Opposition Members suggest that all who are unhappy about the claims being made on them will be entitled to appeal, but we know that—seductive though that is—it is not true. It is a liberal little suggestion, intended to be attractive; but ultimately, if there are to be exclusions and special appeals, by definition they will be available in only a small minority of cases. To suggest the possibility of a general appeal is to undermine the principle on the basis of which the Child Support Act was passed.

The Government are right to suggest a maintenance bonus when people return to work, rather than a general maintenance credit. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has come up with a much more realistic incentive for people to resume employment. Conservative Members know that the main barrier preventing single parents escaping from poverty is inability to work.

In an excellent and wide-ranging speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber) spoke of his objection to the term "absent parent" when applied to the parent who is not looking after a child. I agree: I think that we should consider the term "non-custodial parent", to avoid being gratuitously offensive to many parents who are deeply involved in caring for their children and making the decisions that are necessary for their proper upbringing.

Much anger is felt by parents who believe that they are contributing not just to their children but to their ex-partners, helping to maintain their standard of living and enabling them not to have to work after what may have been an acrimonious divorce or separation. I hope that we can deal with that problem as well.

The workings of the agency have improved beyond recognition in the past couple of years. The number of complaints has fallen dramatically—although it has not fallen enough—and I welcome the pressure exerted by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Minister to secure a faster and more efficient response. Not only have there been delays in replying to letters, but in far too many instances letters have been lost and people have been asked for the same information not once but twice or three times. The agency sends a letter saying that a substantive reply will be sent within a certain number of days, and no reply is received after two or three times the period specified. That needs to be corrected quickly: such a correction would constitute the most rapid way of regaining people's support for the principle that underpins the Child Support Agency.

The principles of the 1991 Act remain paramount. They enjoy the support of people of all political persuasions, throughout the country. The Bill will make the Act work better—and that is in the interests of all of us, of our constituents and, above all, of the children in our constituencies.

7.14 pm

Mr. Malcolm Wicks (Croydon, North-West)

Today we are examining, and trying to understand, a changing map of income distribution and life chances, especially as those factors affect children. In the case of earlier generations our analysis would have included low pay, unemployment and the risk of disability; today we should also include family changes and insecurities as one of the major causes of poverty and dependency.

It is no surprise that—as the hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber) mentioned earlier—another Government Department, the Lord Chancellor's Office, is currently grappling with the fine detail of divorce law reform. Recent reports suggest that we may soon have a White Paper, and possibly legislation. That reform raises issues similar to those that we are now discussing.

It is also no surprise that another piece of social security legislation—the Pensions Bill, which is now making its journey through another place—has recently been amended significantly to allow for the impact of divorce on women and to entitle them to a share of the pension. That gives us a third example of the way in which, at long last, the force of trends in our society has caused family change to have an impact on the policy agendas that count. Indeed, there are many more examples.

We need to become more familiar with such complex territory if Parliaments and Governments are to make wise decisions in the future. The issues are more difficult than some with which the House has had to deal in the past: they are not only complex but emotional, raising fundamental questions about relationships between individuals, their families and the state. We are dealing with the raw edge of policy, and it is not surprising that that rawness should show itself not only in our debates but in our constituency surgeries.

Two couples visited me recently, on separate occasions. In both cases, one parent—the husband in one instance, the wife in the other—had discovered that his or her partner had had a child in a previous relationship; the existence of the child had come to light only as a result of the CSA's intervention. Each had had to contend with that dramatic information in the context of a new relationship. That husband in Croydon kept repeating, "I never knew: it is all new to me," as, understandably, he tried to get to grips with the matter. It is not surprising that the agency's blood-and-thunder policy has been so controversial.

The policy undermines a basic assumption that has been made by society and the welfare state—that a certain family model prevails. We have often assumed, at least implicitly, the existence of that model, based on the durability of marriage and the proposition that children are born within marriage. It has been assumed that their parents will remain married, happily or otherwise, at least until the children are in their teens or early 20s. As we know, that model is being increasingly challenged. I am always struck by the summary fact or projection that, by 2000, which is very soon, probably only half the children in Britain will have what we used to think of as a typical childhood—namely, being born in families in which the parents are married, and spending all their childhood and young adulthood with parents who are married, happily, I hope.

Already, 30 per cent. or more of children are born outside marriage. Those who are born inside marriage will sometimes see the divorce of their parents. It emphasises the point which many have emphasised in recent years: if we make policy on an assumption about typical families, increasingly we get it wrong. I repeat the point that it is not surprising that our policy agendas are becoming cluttered with significant items that deal with the impact of family change. Although I do not believe that all family change is associated with insecurity, much of it is, and therefore policy is grappling with family insecurity.

We are again assembled here to consider the financial costs of family change and how we as a Parliament and, indeed, the Government, grapple with those family costs. The issues are clear. The key questions are: what are the costs of family change? Who pays those costs? Who does not? What will be the implications of our answers on our law and our policy making? One fact that is abundantly clear from the Child Support Act—I mentioned it in a previous debate—is that children are very expensive. I sometimes think that, if a Department of Social Security or a Child Support Agency sent a bill to all parents itemising the cost of our children—the clothing, the shoes, the housing, the heating, the telephone calls, many of us would run away and desert.

The serious point that I am making is that, for parents who have had the misfortune to divorce or who live in other circumstances and are not living with their child, it is a shock when an agency says, "This is the cost of having a child in modern Britain." Most of us never see that bill, thank goodness, but for those who do, it is a shock, and I am not surprised that when confronted with it people say, "If I pay this bill for my child, I cannot live; I cannot spend the money that I want to spend on other things."

I sometimes get weary when people talk about all the expenses that should be taken into account before calculating the costs of one's child. I sometimes think that all parents should get to grips with the fact that paying for one's own children should be one of the early responsibilities that we take on and should not be at the bottom of the list after all sorts of other expenses are calculated. Having children is expensive. It brings joys, no doubt, but it also brings obligations—some financial. That is the issue with which we are trying to get to grips in difficult circumstances.

Some of the facts are clear, but possibly need restating. I am talking in general terms and in averages, and that, no doubt, is unfair to individuals. After divorce, women and children tend to be poorer, and fathers who have not paid their maintenance in the past tend to be better off. Not only are their living standards unaffected, but if they are not paying maintenance they are often better off. It has been calculated that one in four children born this year in Britain will have parents who divorce before the child reaches the age of 16. Increasingly—although we are talking about minorities—we are talking not about tiny groups, but about many children in our society.

We are not just talking about divorce. The fastest-growing proportion of one-parent families are those that are headed up by a single, unmarried mother, who tend to be the most vulnerable, the most insecure, and certainly the poorest. While a staggering seven out of 10 one-parent families—I hope that this evidence is reasonably current—are on income support, the proportion of single, unmarried mothers is higher at about 85 per cent., according to the evidence that I have seen. The fastest-growing group—the single, unmarried mother—is also the poorest.

Since becoming a Member of Parliament just two and a half years or so ago in 1992, one of the things that has made the deepest impression on me as a constituency Member of Parliament is seeing a single, unmarried mother who presents at my advice surgery, often with child in arms, perhaps to get some help with heating, or perhaps her child has asthma or perhaps the mother has a health problem. When one finds out more about the circumstances, there is usually an absent father. I use that term advisedly. When one asks about the father—somewhat nervously—often he is not a factor. He is not around. He is certainly not paying any maintenance. He is not now involved with his own family. That equates with the evidence from the Department of Social Security survey a while ago on one-parent families, which showed that more than four out of 10 children—possibly 43 per cent.—had no contact with the absent parent, normally the father, following the breakdown of the family. That is a worrying fact. I see such a family every week in my surgery.

The real issue is about what happens to the absent parent and why he often becomes absent. What that tells us about young men and the formation of those families requires a great deal of study and concern, not quick judgments. It worries me deeply. As I recall, from the studies that have been made of one-parent families throughout Europe and the European Union, there is something particularly British in the phenomenon of the large number of single, unmarried mothers. While many of the trends that we are discussing are on the march in the same direction throughout Europe, whether east, west, north or south, the large number of single, unmarried mothers seems to be a particularly British issue.

We should be concerned about that because there is an equation between being in a one-parent family, particularly one headed by a single, unmarried mother, and dependence on the state. While right and left may draw different conclusions, none of us can be happy about a situation in which so many of those young and vulnerable families, which include so many children, are now dependent on the state for housing—it is often poor, local authority housing that is badly heated, in bad repair and often has mould on the walls. They are dependent almost entirely on the state for income and often have far too much contact, because of ill health or poor welfare, with the social services department, the hospital and other parts of the national health service.

Mr. Jenkin

May I take the hon. Gentleman back to his comment about the ratio of single-parent families in this country compared with those in our European competitor countries? He spoke about dependency. Are those two states in any way connected? In particular, does he think that perhaps the most highly developed social welfare system in Europe for a great many years, certainly in the early post-war years, that of Britain, has led to or has any connection with the high rate of divorce and single parenthood? Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would be prepared to proffer an alternative suggestion.

Mr. Wicks

I have an alternative analysis. I do not think that I would follow Charles Murray's new right analysis in the United States in terms of a correlation between welfare provision and the development of certain family forms. If I am told that there is evidence for that happening I will accept it because I have respect for evidence, which is an unusual characteristic in the House. I take evidence rather seriously.

The hon. Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin) has made an interesting point. Most young women in Europe are significantly postponing the birth of their first child into their mid or late 20s or early 30s and sometimes later. That explains why the average European Union—I mean European woman. I stumbled over European Union when I looked at the Secretary of State because I did not want to upset him. The average European woman is now having just 1.5 children, a child fewer than in the early 1970s.

Why are women in Europe having fewer children and successful career women having their children later? Why is it that a significant number of young women in Britain—I am talking not about those aged 12 or 13 but about women in their late teens and early 20s—are having children in disadvantageous economic and housing conditions? We should ask questions about the options and opportunities, or the lack of them, that we offer those young women. In a planned way or somewhere between planning and non-planning, such women have children and get locked into the cycle of dependency. That is a rather different perspective.

Mr. Alan Duncan (Rutland and Melton)

Is not one of the problems that has been identified over the past 10 to 20 years that many such young women feel that they can strike a blow for independence largely because they will receive benefits which at that early age seem to be worth a lot of money? It is only later that they realise that they are trapped in a state close to poverty because they are not provided with the amount of money that they had hoped they would get. The state is partly to blame for leading them into that predicament.

Mr. Wicks

Young women who think that on income support they can live the life of Reilly are making a grave mistake. When I see such families and sometimes visit the housing that has been allocated to them by public authorities, I feel sad that our young people and their children will live in that way not just for a few years but perhaps throughout the lifetime of those children. That is a poor option and I am desperately worried that too many of our young people and their children have to live that way.

Mrs. Jane Kennedy

Does my hon. Friend think that one of the reasons giving rise to that trend is that in a constituency such as mine over 50 per cent. of women who are registered as available for work have not worked for 10 years or have never worked in their lives and are very young? That is certainly worth investigation and should form part of a detailed study of trends and families in our society. The opportunities for work and for building their lives and gaining independence which may be available to young women in our European partner countries are not available to young women in my constituency. Therefore their roles are different.

Mr. Wicks

I accept that, and it reminds me of a related issue in a recent parliamentary answer from the Department of Employment. It drew on labour force survey data which showed that about six months ago 1 million of Britain's children lived in households in which the head was unemployed. The figure may be lower now because of falling unemployment. I hope that it is. The majority of people in that group were victims of long-term unemployment—that is to say, the head of the household had been unemployed for more than a year.

That relates to my hon. Friend's point because in some communities children are growing up without the model of a mother or father who has to get up early, have a shower, dress, go into a place called work, earn a wage that enables him to be independent and come home in the evening. Analysing and picturing such children becoming unemployed enables us to explain some of the issues that concern the House. It need not be like that. While seven out of 10 of our one-parent families draw income support, in other societies, such as that in Sweden, which I do not say is perfect, the head of seven out of 10 one-parent families is in the labour market. Although on average their incomes are lower than those of two-parent families, there is not the same poverty and the same dependence on the state.

Although on the political right there is talk of a dependency culture, I prefer to speak about a dependency state because the word culture seeks to blame the victim. We should be blaming ourselves for what has happened to the framework of rights and full employment policies which has undermined opportunities for young people. I certainly see the challenge in social policy, and it relates to the Child Support Act 1991, and how to move resources from dependency and breakdown to investment.

During Question Time it was revealed that social security spending is now at a record level. I do not take comfort from that because, if anything, there is a correlation between record levels of state benefit and social insecurity. That is an exaggeration because we need to understand the benefit totals and take account of other factors such as demography. The fact that we are now spending a large proportion of public money to keep people on low state benefits when many desperately need opportunities to become independent worries us all. I ask again: how do we move from spending resources on breakdown and shift them towards what I call investment in people? That is one of the key challenges.

Not many people need to be reminded, because the mood has changed in th House, that whatever our critique of the Child Support Act—and I have joined in the critique of its practice—we cannot turn the clock back to a court-based system that depends on maintenance collection. That did not work in the past and it is not the future. I turn again to the survey from the Department of Social Security on lone parents which was undertaken by York university. It showed that only 39 per cent. of one-parent families had ever received maintenance and that only 29 per cent. received it regularly. When I say "regularly", that does not imply that the amounts were high enough; they were often very low. I would be loth to accept a critique of the Child Support Act 1991 which assumed that the past was better. It was not. It failed people and it especially failed women and children. For too long in social policy and in society, we have pursued a principle of women and children last. It is time that we changed that.

I have never said that I support the principle of the Act and gone on to undermine it. I have criticisms of it, but I truly support the principle of parental responsibility. Through the Select Committee report, the White Paper and the Bill, we are properly addressing the issues. Whatever our disagreements about details, we are properly addressing areas where the Act may have been overbearing or unfair, to men largely. I accept that and I shall be interested in the details when the Bill goes into Committee. I accept that there is a proper agenda about men's issues. I am, however, sometimes disgusted by the way in which the debate has been heavily dominated by men's concerns and by the way in which the needs of women and children have often been largely neglected.

Many of our children are involved. There are 2 million children in one-parent families. I repeat that seven out of 10 of them are dependent on income support. A wiser Parliament would listen harder than this one does to the silent voices in the debate and would not listen only to those who shout loudest. Many of the silent voices are those of women and, if they could speak, of their children who have been the major victims of family change. Family change in Britain has been a social revolution, but it has not been a bloodless one. Most of the victims have been women and children and we should ask hard questions about women and children.

This is the point where I profoundly disagree with the development of our child support legislation compared with that in, for example, Australia. When Baroness Thatcher, the then Prime Minister, rolled a hand grenade with the pin half out in the direction of the Department of Social Security—when she made her speech—the Department did not know what was coming. It had to grapple with the problem and it was a difficult one with which to grapple. Too soon, the Treasury, whose short-termism makes it a poor promoter of social policy, got its claws into the concept and realised that this was a way in which to raise revenue. It went in for a process of strangulation of an infant social policy. We have not recovered since.

I was last in Australia in 1990; I cannot, therefore, present the House with an up-to-date account. Others know the position there as well as I do or possibly better. In Canberra, I visited the Australian taxation office which collects child maintenance. Everyone I met, whether politicians, civil servants or people in the voluntary sector, told me that there was a clear disregard for lone parents so that they got some of the maintenance. I know that they get the maintenance in our system, but in Australia, there is no deduction of dollar for dollar. In Australia, lone parents were better off as a result of child support legislation. Everyone told me that that was the oil that made the new machinery work.

I was told on several occasions that mothers often rang up the Australian taxation office and asked how everything was going and what their share of the child maintenance would be that week. There was, therefore, a constituency of support in favour of the legislation among custodial parents and among a wider public. People said, "This legislation seems to be controversial, but it seems to be a sound piece of social policy. It is truly a Child Support Act."

I regret the way in which we have a party political conflict about the issue. Any suggestion by the Opposition that we should have a disregard is met with the cry, "Is that another expenditure commitment?" I believe that if there had been a disregard from the start, we would have oiled the wheels. In future years, the share of money coming to the Treasury would probably have been higher than is likely under the present system which has suffered from the Treasury's mean-mindedness.

We have to get this one right; I echo the comments of colleagues on both sides of the House. Sadly, this issue is one of growing importance. There is a rising proportion of children suffering financial, social and emotional insecurities in their childhood. We need to bring about a cultural revolution whereby we make it clear to both parents that whatever may happen to a relationship or a marriage and even though, sadly, many of our children will spend much of their childhood not living with both parents, both parents must take on the financial and other responsibilities for their children.

The issue of how we balance the rights of parents against their responsibilities is one of the key concepts in social policy. I have never felt that it is a useful political debate either to emphasise rights or to emphasise responsibilities. It is the balance between the two that is crucial. Just as I champion the development of the child benefit scheme as a universal provision or just as I champion the growth of child care and provision for the under-fives, so I shall champion, with equal sincerity, the view that parents must take the major responsibility for their children. If that belief is lost in the future, we face the prospect of a lost generation of children. The issues today could not be more important.

7.46 pm

Mr. David Ashby (Leicestershire, North-West)

The hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Wicks) could have ended his excellent speech by explaining to us why he intended to vote against the Bill. I fail to understand why he intends to vote against it, as much of what he said was in favour of the Bill. I also fail to understand why the Opposition intend to vote against the Bill.

The Child Support Agency touches virtually everyone in some way or another. It has had a fantastic effect. I am very surprised that although the Child Support Act 1991 has had so much effect on parliamentarians and on individuals outside, we have here in the Chamber only about seven hon. Members on one side and only about eight on the other. There are no Liberal Democrats here at all at this stage.

The setting up of the Child Support Agency was the most fundamental and revolutionary step. It has been described as part of an infant social policy; it is more than that. It is the most enormous social policy, which goes into the homes of many people and affects so many more. It has replaced a system that was based on people—the way in which people react, the work that people do and people's individual problems—by, in many ways, a mathematical formula. In its original conception, it was a most socialist bit of legislation. I was part of the pack that chased the original Act through the House of Commons. I followed it and chased it through, yelled loudly and said how good it was. Yet I find myself saying that it is not the sort of legislation that one would expect a Conservative Government to enact.

Mr. Duncan

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Ashby

Let me develop my argument. Many Conservative Members concentrated on the fact that people received benefits, so the fathers must be chased to pay the people and the benefits, but I do not think that they appreciated that the Child Support Act would give an agency control over every person involved in a marital dispute, a separation and an eventual divorce and that there was to be total state involvement. I so welcome the Bill because we have stepped back from the brink and are now into deferment.

However, I do not want deferment. I want permanence. There are areas in which most people can look after their own affairs better than the state and this is one of them. The state need only interfere in and become involved with payments. Individuals can make up their own mind about what they will pay each other and decide how they will work it out between them, what the property transfer will be and how they will go about their own business. That is what should happen and we should encourage it as much as possible. We may see great encouragement of such policy in future legislation. The only trigger to involve the state should be the provision of benefits. I do not know whether that answers the point on which my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) wanted to intervene, but I shall happily give way.

Mr. Duncan

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way because I remain puzzled at his initial accusation that the Bill is a socialist piece of legislation, or, at least, that the initial Act was. Ever since the war, the state has taken on more and more responsibility for individuals and, indeed, the taxpayer has been forced to pick up the tab for split marriages. Of course, the state is involved in paying benefits, but surely, in trying to reverse the dramatic trends since the war, the Bill is the exact opposite of a piece of socialist legislation.

Mr. Ashby

My hon. Friend does not understand exactly what socialism is in that case. Socialism is the state telling people what is better for them than they know themselves. Socialism is the state telling people what they should be doing and not what people feel that they ought to be doing. Socialism is the state taking over one's will and one's powers to be able to negotiate and discuss with one's partner what one thinks is best. That is what socialism is and that is what the Bill does. One's entire financial future is set to be taken over by a body based in Belfast, which will dictate exactly what one should or should not do and what one should or should not pay one's wife in respect of the children, regardless of whether the children will benefit or not.

I totally endorse and most sincerely welcome deferment, as it is a fundamental step back from the original Act. However, if we were to start again, I hope that with hindsight and knowledge of what has happened, we would not go down this path. But we have gone down it and we must try to make the best of it. I welcome the Bill for that reason if for no other.

Various hon. Members have spoken about the morale of the agency staff. The absence of flexibility in the legislation must have affected their morale. It must have been extremely frustrating for them to have common sense dictated to them time and again over the telephone by various people who were asking them why they did not do this or that, or why they did not take into account this or that. The staff must have known that not taking into account such aspects was crazy, and not having flexibility in the rules must have affected them. Lack of flexibility has certainly been a source of tremendous confrontation between clients and staff of the Child Support Agency.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Mr. Hendry), I have been lobbied by very concerned people who have been affected by the Child Support Agency. I deplore threats and I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe), who raised the issue of terror tactics, was absolutely right to say that we should never give in to them. I have received many blackmail-type letters telling me that I would not be re-elected. Fortunately, all of them come from places far from my constituency, such as Manchester. Some of the letters may have come from Bury, North, but they have certainly not come from my constituency.

In my constituency, the most helpful organisation has continually told me that it supports the Child Support Agency and its fundamental aim. It is headed by Nick Jeffreys, who has acted like a social worker in the area. He has taken disgruntled and upset clients to see the right people for sound advice. Mr. Jeffreys also gives sound advice and, by and large, the organisation has done much to defuse the situation. People who have lobbied me in my constituency have been helpful and constructive. They have convinced me of the problems with the Child Support Act and, when one looks at the Act and the changes in the Bill, one sees that they have convinced the Government, too. So, far from being outrageous, such people have been absolutely correct. We must welcome the fact that the Bill addresses many of the issues that they raised. We are obviously listening and altering things as we need to.

Although I said that I would not have started from such a point in looking for maintenance for children, legislation is now in place and we must make the best of it. Nothing is written in tablets of stone. I welcome my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary saying that time and again. He has listened time and again, too. He has given counter-arguments at times, but at other times he has certainly accepted what has been said and been most constructive about it. We cannot write such legislation in tablets of stone, because we are talking about human nature, and the effects of anything that we do on human nature are never clear. We hope that the changes in the Bill will resolve most of the problems—we expect that—but they might not. We must have flexibility and always listen.

Above all, we must remember that we are trying to balance the needs of the child and the needs of the mother and recognise that civil rights and human liberties are involved. Hitherto, it could have been said that we did not achieve that balance. Certainly, we were not taking account of the civil rights of the people who were involved.

So many of us represent rural areas. However, the travel-to-work area is not taken into account in these matters. If someone does not earn very much, travel to work can involve a great deal of money. Most people in my area work in Leicester, almost 30 miles away. According to the new provisions, a travel-to-work distance of 15 miles will be considered. That means that about £25 will have to be disregarded before those people receive something back, because we are talking about a provision in the Bill for 15 miles a day before 10p a mile is paid.

We all know how much Members of Parliament receive per mile for travelling expenses. Why do we expect other people to have lower costs per mile than we have? Why do we expect people to have lower costs per mile than what the RAC and the AA estimate are the true costs of running a car? I suppose that one of my constituents driving to Leicester might drive a 10-year-old car as he probably cannot afford anything better.

Mr. Duncan

He can take the bus.

Mr. Ashby

The problem is that there are no buses and they do not arrive at the right time anyway. My hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton is aware of the problem with buses in his area: catch a bus, indeed. He is as aware as I am of how difficult it is to take a bus to Leicester.

A father has visited me on several occasions and he wants to know where the justice is in his case. There are four children in his family: he has kept two and his wife has kept two. The two he has kept are being disregarded. He told me, "I have my children for five days and my wife has her children for five days. On normal Saturdays and Sundays, my wife's two come to me, so I have four children for two days." The agency disregards the fact that he feeds and keeps his wife's two children on those extra two days.

In that father's case, the agency also appears to disregard the fact that he has the other two children when it assesses what must be paid to the wife. Although it claims otherwise, it further seems to disregard the fact that the wife now has a boyfriend who seems to be keeping her quite well. That father feels that he is very much worse off than the wife. He feels that there is an injustice and I tend to agree with him with regard to the present formula.

What people require most of all is justice. People might wince when they have to pay a large amount, but they do not rebel until they come across injustice. People are really seeking justice and that is why I welcome the appeals procedure. I sincerely hope that if the appeals procedure is used properly, it will do much to resolve injustice.

One of the fundamental problems experienced by the people who come to my surgeries is the belief that the CSA has not listened to them properly when they say that the facts are not the facts that the agency says has been presented to it. People present me with the facts and they can often produce letters and photographs to verify those facts.

The CSA should be triggered off by the fact that a wife is on benefit. Should not that be the first port of call? The first question that the agency should ask is whether the person is entitled to benefits. The agency should listen to husbands who say that a person should not receive benefits. If the agency did that, and inquired properly into whether benefits were being triggered, it might be able to get rid of many of its cases.

There was a very interesting answer to a question today about people on benefit. We were told that 720,000 people are earning nothing, but their spending is above the average. People do not get money from nowhere. It seems that 720,000 people may well be making claims that they should not be making.

Mr. Jenkin

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Ashby

I would be happy to know whether the figure that I have quoted is incorrect.

Mr. Jenkin

I would not dream of disputing my hon. Friend's figure. However, on being approached by the CSA, many single parents have asked themselves whether they should be entitled to benefit. A very large number of single parents—perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister will enlighten us about this when he replies to the debate—have left the benefits system as a result of an approach by the CSA. That seems to be grist to the mill of my hon. Friend the Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby) and I wanted to help him with that point.

Mr. Ashby

I am delighted to hear that. I wish we had some figures to prove that point. Perhaps they will be provided when my hon. Friend the Minister replies later.

I am a tremendous believer in the welfare state helping those who really need help. However, there is an awful lot of fraud. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister does not accept that there is as much fraud as I suggest there is. I believe that there is an enormous amount of fraud. The depth of fraud is much greater than any Government have acknowledged or were prepared to acknowledge.

I see fraud from the other side, time and again. As a member of the Bar, I am involved in areas where most of my clients are unemployed and have never been employed. Is it right to say that crime gives rise to unemployment? As far as I can make out, half the people with whom I am involved have never wanted to be employed. I do not find that unemployed people turn to crime; it is the other way round. It is the criminals who are unemployed. I see those people in confidence. I cannot disclose what is said. One feels so inadequate. Virtually every one of those people who comes before the courts seems to be involved in some sort of benefit fraud.

When people come to my surgery and they describe the CSA's involvement in their cases, I see the same pattern time and again. On occasion, I ask whether the person in my surgery wants me to do something about the problem. When the answer is "Yes," I telephone the fraud inquiry section in Leicester. The telephone rings and rings. When I try later at 4.30 pm, it rings and rings again. Finally, someone answers and says, "They've all gone home." I cannot do anything about the problem.

I am not sure whether the fraud inquiry section is as good as we try to make out. It seems to be quite happy to pursue people across the fenlands to discover whether they should be working or whether they are on benefits. I have seen that on television. It was all high profile, with the television cameras trained on those people. No doubt the people on the programme had been alerted to come along and see the kind of work that the section does.

However, I have reported fraud on many occasions and I cannot describe how dissatisfied I am with the way in which fraud is investigated by the Benefits Agency.

Mr. Jack Thompson (Wansbeck)

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that there are other elements of fraud, which might be described as legitimate fraud? For example, in a case of which I am aware, it is claimed that an ex-wife who was in employment, and who was earning a substantial income including overtime, stopped earning overtime as soon as she became aware of the CSA arrangement. As she did that, her pay slips showed that she was earning below the stated level for the period required. As soon as she had submitted her pay slips, she went back to working overtime.

Mr. Ashby

That is absolutely right. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, because that complaint has been raised with me on several occasions. That system is fairly well known. The hon. Gentleman has obviously been told about that in his surgeries, so he knows that it goes on. I know that it goes on and I know how dissatisfied I am. We have to tackle the problem, because people who play the game by the rules and behave properly are profoundly dissatisfied when they find out what happens. They are legitimately dissatisfied and unhappy and that reflects on all of us.

I have made the point about fraud. I could go on talking about it. My hon. Friends know how often I have raised it. I feel that we must do more about fraud. We must fundamentally change our fraud organisations so that we can investigate it properly. We should possibly take it away from the Department of Social Security and return it to the police. We must do something to bring fraud investigation to the forefront. It is costing the country millions of pounds. That money could legitimately and properly be used to help people. That comment is not Treasury based. The Treasury has properly put money into budgets to be used to help people. When it is misused, it does not help the people whom it is supposed to help. We should be tough and tight on fraud.

I welcome most aspects of the Bill. I have some concerns about some of the changes. They will put enormous pressure on the Child Support Agency. At times, I feel that the Bill will be another nightmare. I am thinking, for example, of the new payment provisions. Implementation will be a bureaucratic nightmare for the Child Support Agency. It will increase the work load greatly. At present, we receive complaint after complaint about what is happening in the CSA. Here we are trying to change things. We are putting another burden on it, which will cause more problems. I hope that hon. Members realise that we are trying to improve things, but that the changes will place an added work load on the agency. We shall see more delays as a result of that.

In general, I welcome the Bill. It is an improvement on the original Act. It provides greater flexibility in case assessments. It allows affected parties to appeal. It provides for special payments in certain circumstances. It is a valuable piece of legislation to that extent. We must appreciate that if we are to have an appeal procedure, there must be a full opportunity to examine the facts on both sides.

I intervened in the speech of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to ask a question about appeals. He seemed to say that the CSA would not be able to look at facts on appeal. If we are not to look at facts on appeal, we ain't going to get justice. It is justice that people want. In cases in which there has been continued misrepresentation and an aggrieved party knows that the facts stated are wrong, he should be able to produce such evidence as is necessary to show that he is right.

8.13 pm

Ms Mildred Gordon (Bow and Poplar)

The Bill is a skeleton Bill. Many of the details, such as amounts of money, qualifying criteria and procedures to be followed, will be given in the regulations, which are not yet available. Yet there is sufficient in the Bill and there are sufficient omissions of important changes that the public wanted for me to feel confident that, when I opposed the Child Support Bill that became the 1991 Act, I was correct.

I said in 1991 that if the Government really wanted to improve the system of child maintenance, they would set up family courts and an agency or service to collect or enforce maintenance. The hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms Lynne) was criticised for proposing that we should have family courts. It was said that family courts had failed, that there was no going back and that that was that—we had this system and we had to stick with it and do the best that we could. I remember everyone saying some years ago that the rating system had failed. People on both sides of the House agreed with that. The poll tax was introduced. It was a head tax which everyone, even those on income support, was to pay. They would be watchdogs to see that councils did not overspend. People said that there was no going back and the poll tax was there to stay.

Yet the public outcry about the poll tax was such that it did not stay. The Government were forced to change it and we now have the council tax. I predict that the public outcry about the CSA will not only continue but increase and that the agency will have to be changed. If the Government have any sense, they will start to think about introducing a family courts system, as outlined in the Children Act 1989.

Any Bill that deals with the maintenance of children should have children's welfare at the heart of it. I attacked the first Child Support Bill because it appeared to me then that the Government's main interest was in clawing back benefit. No one wants to pay unnecessary taxes. No one likes paying taxes, although most people see the necessity of paying taxes and do so, even if unwillingly. Everyone believes that parents should be responsible for their children, not merely financially but in every other way, and that if they can afford to take financial responsibility, they certainly should do so.

We do not seem to agree that the state in a civilised society also has responsibility for children. The Bill does not recognise that responsibility. There is still a benefit penalty. The Bill does not remove it. By the end of January, 15,500 parents with care were penalised by reduced benefit directions. There are 40,000 more in the pipeline and thousands more are intimidated by the benefit penalty, which forces them to sign the maintenance forms when they feel that it might harm them and their family to make contact with the divorced or separated partner.

Mr. Duncan

Why does the hon. Lady think that the state should continue to pay benefits to a family which happens to be split when, if the family had remained together, the state would not have been obliged to pay any such benefits? Does that not provide through the state an incentive to families to split?

Ms Gordon

>: I thought I said clearly that where absent parents can afford to support their children, they have the responsibility to do so; they should have that responsibility. I also said that the state had a responsibility to children and that no one in a civilised society should want to see children go hungry. I set up the all-party parliamentary Child Support Act monitoring group. We have received report after report from respectable voluntary agencies recognised by the Government, saying that mothers go hungry. They say that mothers whom they meet give their children money for chips and have no lunch themselves. They say that when they visit such mothers, they find empty refrigerators.

A citizens advice bureau in Sussex reported a single parent with five children under seven whose benefit was reduced by £20 per week to repay rent, water rates and community charge arrears and a social fund loan to buy furniture. She was finding it difficult to manage on £75 a week. If that woman had been in a relationship in which there was violence and she had been afraid of making contact with the father of her children because she thought that it would be traumatic for the children, that £75 would have been reduced to £65 a week. Those children would go hungry, and we surely cannot accept that. The welfare of children must come first.

Mr. Burt

The hon. Lady must concede that if the lady to whom she referred signed the forms and went to see a child support officer to set out her circumstances, she would be allowed good cause not to comply with the Child Support Agency and her family would not need to go hungry.

Ms Gordon

There must be some differences of opinion, or there would not be 40,000 women whose reasons have been rejected and 15,000 women who have suffered the benefit penalty. Those women must have had good reasons to appeal, or they would not have put themselves in a position where they could possibly suffer a penalty of a reduction in their already low income by nearly £10.

It is poor families who have their water, gas and electricity disconnected, and who get into serious trouble. I see such families all the time, because I represent one of the poorest areas in the country. I know very well the sort of difficulties which those people can get into, through no fault of their own. Those people have often managed miraculously on what they have, but the money is just not enough. It should be left to the parent—nearly always a woman—to make the decision whether or not to apply to the agency. The parent knows why her relationship broke up and the effect that that has had on the children.

Mr. Burt

I understand the point that the hon. Lady is making, but she must see the other side. She is asking for a mother to have unilateral control over whether she asks the father for maintenance or relies on the state. That cannot be the case, because she would then be giving carte blanche to a bloke to wander off and abandon her and to let the state pick up the tab. There has to be someone who decides whether there is a proper good cause, and that is what the agency's officers do. The fact that they accept 50 per cent. of the reasons which come before them suggests that they exercise a good deal of sensitivity on the matter. To have no rule at all—which is what the hon. Lady is asking for—would surely do no one any good.

Ms Gordon

I am not saying that there should not be a rule, and I never have asked for that. My question is—who are the people who make the decision, and how do they do it? Will it be half-trained civil servants, making a decision on the basis of a rigid formula? Or should it be a family court, which can listen to the problems of that family and take a rounded view of each case? That is a completely different situation. I am not asking for anarchy, and I never would.

There is nothing in the Bill to give immediate help to the poorest of parents with care who are on income support. All of the voluntary organisations have called for a disregard, which would not only raise the standard of living of those parents with care and their children, many of whom are going hungry—that is not a sob story, but a fact—but would give an incentive to the absent fathers to pay the maintenance regularly. The fathers might pay if they knew that some of the money was going for the benefit of their children, and not to the state.

The changes which will benefit absent fathers will be put into effect in four weeks, but the only benefit for mothers with care is the bonus that has been deferred for two years. It will take four years before mothers can reach the maximum amount specified, but they need help now. What happens to mothers who want to stay at home to look after small children? It is perfectly legitimate to want to be at home with small children, and not leave them to go out to work.

What happens to a mother who takes a job, is made redundant from that job, goes on income support and then goes back to work later? Will she get the bonus, or will it be lost because she lost her job? That is not clear at all. The Bill says that the agency will save up the money in those circumstances where women take a job, but it does not say whether interest will be counted on that money while it is held back. The money will be given to the mother only on the occurrence of a prescribed event which seems to be when the mother gets a job.

We do not know whether the mother will have to work a certain amount of time before she gets the bonus. That is very unclear, but it seems to me that she will not receive much benefit. That is especially relevant when most of the jobs which women can get are part-time, low-paid and insecure jobs. If a mother is going to look after her children properly she wants to make sure that she gets her maintenance, income support or whatever her lifeline is. She can take employment only if she has a secure job. I would not advise a mother to take an insecure, part-time low-paid job because that would do her and her children more harm than good.

Mr. Duncan

If the hon. Lady reads the Bill carefully, she will find that it makes provision for a much more simplified and effective review procedure in the event of a change in circumstances. The problem of a mother with care taking a part-time job and then perhaps having to go back on benefit is very sensibly addressed by the Bill.

Ms Gordon

That is better than the former situation, in which a mother had to wait for six months. We do not know how the system will work, and having a part-time insecure job is still a problem. A mother wants security and to be able plan ahead for herself and her children.

The changes in the Bill do not help low-paid absent fathers either. A man on income support still has to pay £2.50 a week, which may leave him with a very low amount on which to live. That is punitive, and the changes are overwhelmingly in favour of wealthy absent fathers.

Clause 18 states that parents with care who had pre-1993 settlements will not be helped. The big benefit of the system was to be that mothers who had maintenance arranged by the courts which was not being paid would be able to go to the agency. Some mothers thought that they would not have to go back to the court, and that the agency would sort it all out. All of them have been disappointed, as the agency has done nothing of the sort. The Bill is saying that the agency is not even going to look into those cases. It is not interested in them, and it is really interested only in parents who are on income support. That is quite obvious.

Voluntary agencies have outlined about 40 different changes which they thought would be needed in the Act to make it work, and some of those have been taken into account. The grounds for departure from the formula now take account of the cost of travel, the cost of maintaining contact with children, the cost of supporting stepchildren, disability, illness, clean-break settlements, debt from previous relationships and certain other expenses. That is all to the good, but the Bill gives no information on the costs that will be allowed and does not give the criteria for deciding whether those are essential costs. It does not specify how much discretion the child support officer will be allowed.

The Bill states that the intention is to limit the number of potential beneficiaries. It stresses that the system of departures will be available only to a "small minority of cases", and that the amount by which an assessment can be reduced or increased will be strictly limited. So there is not as big an improvement as has been trumpeted.

Many other changes are necessary, as the voluntary agencies have outlined. For example, the care and maintenance of older children in tertiary education is very expensive and should be acknowledged. There is also the matter of child care costs. If a second wife goes to work, her child care costs could be £90 to £100 a week for each child.

Again, I can only stress that each case is individual and that only family-based courts can be seen to be just. If we want fathers to pay maintenance and not to try to wriggle out of it—not that the majority of fathers want to, as they want their children to be well looked after—and to pay it regularly, they have to see it as a just decision. If they are able to put their point of view to a family court and if all the factors are taken into account, even if they disagree with the decision, they have to see it to be fair and just. The Government would get a better system and fathers would pay more regularly.

If one tries to impose a rigid formula, as has been done, even though some changes might take the edge off some of the worst grievances, many more will be left and it creates bitterness, which is eroding relationships. Couples often manage to find a modus vivendi that helps the children after very traumatic divorces. Now much bitterness has been stirred up and children have been upset. It has been happening throughout the country and I am not making it up. The Minister's mailbags undoubtedly show it to be true—those are facts.

A Catch 22 is built into the complaints system, in that the absent parent cannot take up the matter unless his payments are up to date, but he is probably complaining because he cannot afford to pay and therefore cannot bring them up to date. If he cannot afford to pay and to cancel out the debt, he cannot take his case to the tribunal. It seems that fathers will have to go first to the Secretary of State, which means the Child Support Agency officers, who will be flooded with cases.

The system has proved to be inefficient. I have had some most intemperate letters from Miss Chant, the head of the agency, which I intend to send to the Minister. They make me doubt whether she should be there at all. I cannot see that the new system is going to work—there will be a huge backlog and it will be another fiasco.

The Secretary of State is making a second attempt to patch up this ill-thought-out Act because he is under pressure from his Back Benchers, who are in turn under pressure from their constituents. Each time that he makes a change, it brings new problems, injustices and unfair situations. In the end, the Government will have to give up this Act and all the alterations to it. They will have to face facts and move to a system of family courts, and the sooner that they do so, the better for the parents and children of this country.

8.32 pm

Mr. Alan Duncan (Rutland and Melton)

The hon. Member for Bow and Poplar (Ms Gordon) understandably concentrated on those people who live in her constituency who have very little money. From what she said, it was clear that their main experience of life is having to manage the myriad benefits that exist. They have to learn the system if they are to survive, and they do so very quickly to ensure that they can use to their best advantage all the very different benefits that are available.

That is understandable, but the fact that people have to do that perhaps also illustrates one of the grave problems of the advance of the welfare state since the war. They have to do it because there are not enough jobs around. One might argue strongly that the existence of those benefits in that form is the reason why they are not around. The hon. Member for Bow and Poplar also concentrated on the detail of the workings of the Child Support Agency. She looked at every detail and clause essentially to find out how the Bill can best be worked by its beneficiaries.

We should not lose sight of the larger picture and social policy into which the Bill fits. We run the risk of not being able to see the wood for the trees by concentrating so much on the detail, without realising the significance of the Child Support Agency as a change in the social policy of post-war Britain.

During the past week, Mr. Amitai Etzioni has been in town and has attracted much publicity. He is the champion of the new communitarian thinking that is beginning to occupy many a brilliant mind in Britain and the United States. If my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) had not been compelled to take a Trappist vow by sitting on the Front Bench as a Whip, we would have heard quite a lot from him in the past few days on those themes. Essentially, communitarianism is a search for the sort of social stability and patterns of social life that we have lost, not merely in this country but in many western democracies since the war, which the Bill and the Child Support Act 1991 that preceded it are attempting to address.

Community is the new buzzword—to try to find some green and promised land that can allow us to return to those stable family relationships and patterns of behaviour that have disappeared in such large numbers and compelled the state to pick up the pieces. In the search for that promised land, many ambiguous themes go with the notion of community.

If we were to use the word community simply and to apply it to family life and the sort of problems that the Child Support Agency is trying to solve, the hon. Member for Bow and Poplar and I might both say that we believed in it. I suspect that the hon. Lady and the Leader of the Opposition see it as a means of extending state power, however, whereas I see it as a means to reduce it. We applaud the idea of community, but I would argue that all the virtues of family life for which the CSA and other measures are searching have been suffocated by Government and cannot be restored unless the Government retreat from many areas of life. The hon. Lady's whole speech clearly illustrated the poor effects of the dead hand and the over-extension of Government intervention into every nook and cranny.

In assessing how we want community and the restoration of proper family life to arise once again in Britain, I take issue with my hon. Friend the Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby), who has left the Chamber. He said that this legislation is socialist, but it is the opposite. Since the war, the Government have had to pick up the pieces of changing patterns of social life. The number of one-parent families has risen dramatically and, instead of families—split though they may be—being compelled to sort out the problems for themselves, the state has been picking up the pieces. The point of the Bill is that it is the first social legislation in post-war Britain, if not ever, to reverse the trend of the state taking on responsibility for family life and to compel parents once again to do just that.

This is the first Bill to have turned the corner from the state producing many more benefits and more dependent people and to say instead that, if parents who have split up can afford to bring up their children in the way that they would have done had they remained together, they should do just that. As such, it is the most crucial, important and significant legislation in social policy since the war and it is the duty of every hon. Member to ensure that it survives.

Mr. Jenkin

I am enjoying my hon. Friend's speech and I am also enjoying the spectacle of one or two of the faces of Opposition Members who are listening but showing puzzlement. The reason is that, for the state to withdraw from aspects of people's private lives, we are having to increase its power. I wonder whether my hon. Friend can explore that theme because, however popular the ideas of Mr. Etzioni and communitarianism might be becoming on the Opposition Benches, supporters of communitarianism and family life, which is what the Bill is all about, fail to understand that to reinforce the moral atmosphere around which families coalesce requires the state to take on or make judgments about aspects of people's lives in a way that—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. Interventions are supposed to be brief and to the point, not mini-speeches.

Mr. Duncan

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin) for presenting such a cogent and reasoned exposition of his view. He has hit on an important point which is that, if one attempts to roll back the frontiers of the state, as my hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and Disabled People once said in a memorable speech, severe problems of transition arise. It is those very problems that the Act and now the Bill address. One could simply say that single mothers with an absent husband who could afford to bring up a child should be excluded from the benefit system. However, that would be unduly cruel and unjustifiable in a modern, civilised society. The proper legislation to bring about the transition from the state paying for that child to the absent father with means doing so must involve the state in setting up a system whereby the mother, if she is to come off benefit, can receive money from someone who can pay—the absent father. The Bill tries to deal with the problems of that transition.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will take note of the point that I am about to make, which deals with the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, North has just raised. Whereas the state has the right to intervene in the family finances of a split couple where the mother is on benefit and therefore making demands on the state, it does not have the right to intervene in the family finances of a couple where the state does not support the mother and children. The Bill should draw a line to distinguish between cases where, perforce and often for good reasons, the mother is on benefit and those where the couple has means and the mother is not on benefit because she is kept by the absent father under some lasting court settlement.

Mr. Dewar

I am curious about the consequences of the hon. Gentleman's point. As he knows, a proposal has been made that certain cases that were to come within the ambit of the CSA in 1996 should be deferred, "deferment" being the operative word. As those are cases where no benefit is involved, does he argue that they should be permanently excluded?

Mr. Duncan

Yes, I do. Indeed, I would think for an eternity before bringing them within the aegis of the CSA. This may be a slight and peculiar disagreement with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, but it happens to be my view. In cases where the mother is not on benefit, except through the court system, the CSA has no right to intervene in the finances of her family. That is where I would wish to see the line drawn. Where the mother or, in some cases, the father, is on benefit, CSA rules should apply. I draw the line so that those who do not rely on the state for benefit should not come within the ambit of the CSA.

The Social Security Select Committee has drawn up two reports on the CSA. Unlike the Select Committee on Employment, where there has been more theatrical discussion of current issues, the cross-party assessment by the Social Security Select Committee has been sensible and purposeful, and has looked into the details of the CSA during the past year—[Interruption.]

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman Lancaster)

That Committee has a good Chairman.

Mr. Duncan

Indeed, it has a Labour Chairman, the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), who handles it in a way that ensures that there is cross-party co-operation and a proper study of everything that comes before us. That, rather than television theatricals, is exactly what the Select Committee system should be about. The value of our work is evident in our reports. When we attract television attention and comments by journalists when, for instance, a Minister with something to say appears before us, it is for absolutely the right reason—so that those who attend our Select Committee proceedings learn something rather than just watch a purposeless spectacle, as they have so often done with the Employment Select Committee which, I regret to say, is bringing the entire Select Committee system into disrepute.

The Social Security Select Committee's first report made some suggestions, most of which were taken up by the Government. However, there were clearly still some problems. Injustices were arising from the workings of the CSA; its administration was over-burdened and those working in it, many of whom faced a vulgar and disgusting campaign against them by the sort of people who would send razor blades in envelopes through the post, did a good job but could not wholly cope. It is therefore right that, by and large, the various recommendations that we have made in our second report have been taken up by the Government. We made 22 proposals, most of which have been incorporated in the Bill. In some cases, the Secretary of State has gone even further. I am grateful to him for that. I commend the Under-Secretary on the way in which he has handled the matter with a cool head and open ears to ensure that solutions to problems that have genuinely arisen have been incorporated in the Bill.

The Bill assists the process of reversing trends that have devastated some families since the war. It is crucial that the legislation that we have put in place is allowed to work, and assisted so that it can work properly. We shall see that, by handing back responsibility to parents for the care of their children and by reversing the scope of the state to go into many nooks and crannies of family life, we have taken a first step towards introducing the sort of communitarianism that many people are debating so actively. By reducing the size of the state, we shall reverse the way in which the state has displaced so much private virtue, private responsibility, liberty and freedom. Most Opposition Members' definition of community and communitarianism is a cloak for wishing to extend state power and, in nicer language, simply to have more of the same and do more of the same damage.

This is a truly revolutionary Bill. Britain has been gasping for such a Bill for many a decade and I urge everyone in the House to support it.

8.47 pm

Mr. Jack Thompson (Wansbeck)

I have really enjoyed tonight's debate. It has been one of those rare occasions in the House in recent years when I have felt that Back Benchers have had some influence on the decisions that are being made.

The comments of the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) related more to the 1991 Act than to this Bill. My view of that Act is that there was general support for the principle of the Child Support Agency arrangement that absent parents should contribute towards the upkeep of their children. But the argument at that time, last year and now is about the conditions that apply to the legislation. The political differences between the two sides of the House seem to be about those conditions.

I am not entirely in favour of the Bill because it does not go far enough, and for that reason I shall vote for the amendment, but it is a step forward from the 1991 Act and the changes that were made last year. It offers a more humanitarian approach. The terms of the 1991 Act were Conservative based, whereas we are now moving towards a more socialist attitude to our business.

I always try to look at any legislation objectively to see what is or is not of benefit to my constituents and the area that I represent. As a result of the 1991 Act, I accept that absent parents became more responsible for their former families. Today, Conservative Members in particular have drawn attention to the militant attitude of some critics of the 1991 Act. I have had many dealings with absent parents in my constituency, however, and they have never criticised the basic principle behind that Act. They have always said that they believe that absent parents should make a contribution, but they questioned the way in which the Act operated.

From my experience of the 1991 Act, the sad thing to note has been the heartache that it has caused to both partners in a marriage, but particularly to the children involved. I am sure that every other hon. Member has had a similar experience, because we have all had to deal with problems to do with that Act. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bow and Poplar (Ms Gordon) has said, at one time we had to deal with problems caused by the horrendous poll tax, which also caused heartache to many of my constituents, but I believe that the 1991 Act has caused as much, if not more heartache.

I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House would agree that the 1991 Act has aggravated the problems faced by people when their marriage breaks up. I have seen constituents who told me that their separation and eventual divorce was reached on fairly reasonable terms. Genuine attempts were made to resolve the problem to look after the interests of the children in particular. In many ways, that reflects how matters stood before the CSA existed, when the courts decided that an absent parent should make a financial contribution towards the children of a marriage. Those parents made that contribution based on the court instruction and, more often than not, they also helped to pay for clothing, holidays and various other things needed by the children. Such arrangements worked fairly reasonably, but once the CSA became involved, matters became acrimonious. Formerly acceptable arrangements between ex-partners suddenly became contentious and that affected the children one way or another.

In two cases in my constituency teachers told me about watching a certain pattern develop because of the involvement of the CSA. They told me that when the parents of children in their classes got divorced, the work of the children affected initially declined and they became less attentive. With the help of the school, those children gradually overcame their problems and began to work properly again, but once the CSA became involved, the standard of those children's work fell right back to where it was before. The CSA's involvement has meant that the relationships between people have gradually declined until matters have become extremely difficult and the children involved have suffered.

The significant mistakes in the original 1991 Act were slightly eased by the modifications announced last year, but even those changes caused problems, as other hon. Members have already said. The confusion created by the operation of the original Act was compounded by further confusion as attempts were made to resolve cases.

On a number of occasions, I had to refer to the so-called local office for my area of mid-Northumberland, which was in Falkirk. Many of my constituents who had to telephone that office to try to resolve their problems were not enamoured by the gentle, nice Scots voice at the other end of the line. In my part of Britain, our relations with the Scots were not too good for many years, although we are overcoming that problem now. There was genuine resentment, however, at the fact that the local office was in mid-Scotland. I am pleased to note that the Minister responded to that, because we now have a local office in my town, to which the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell) now have to go to get their cases dealt with. The Minister's response was important, because my constituents were glad to be able to go to their local office instead of having to ring Falkirk and trying to understand a difficult foreign dialect.

In one difficult constituency case the parent made his contributions through the courts, generally through direct debit. The CSA then got involved and he received a demand for the payment to be made through it. The ex-husband continued to pay through the courts and at the same time tried to pay through the CSA. He paid twice because no one told him that he did not have to pay through the courts any more. I had to write to the CSA to get its staff to write a letter to that man, because he was an honest citizen, who felt that he had to continue to carry out the instructions from the courts until someone said differently. Eventually he was advised to stop paying through the courts and make his payment through the CSA.

I recall the previous debates that we had on the CSA and I appreciate the Secretary of State's response to previous attempts to modify the 1991 Act. Those attempts have been acknowledged by all hon. Members, including the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar). Although the Secretary of State's actions were somewhat out of character, bearing in mind his right-wing views on many other issues, progress was made. Perhaps it is too little, and perhaps it is too late.

I, like many other right hon. and hon. Members, will attempt to explain the issue. Obviously, all my constituents who are involved with the CSA believe that there will be changes, but I understand that some of the changes will not come into force until 1997. People continue to suffer the problems.

There will be a long delay regarding certain elements of the Bill when it becomes an Act. There are elements that are there under the regulations, as I understand it.

I hope that the Secretary of State will bear in mind one matter. I mentioned it earlier when I intervened on the hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby) when he was talking about fraud. I quoted the instance of a constituent who explained to me that his wife was in full-time employment and was being paid overtime, and that when she became involved with the CSA she stopped working overtime, which meant that her pay slips were down. She was then able to claim income support, which meant that her ex-husband paid more, because that block of pay slips was used as evidence. When that exercise was completed, she returned to working overtime. That is unfair.

I know of the reverse happening in another case. A constituent who works seasonal overtime was assessed on his seasonal overtime, which was unfair.

One way in which the Secretary of State might overcome that problem is to consider annual income. It is better to consider a person's annual income than to consider a five-week period.

Mr. Burt

indicated assent.

Mr. Thompson

The Minister is nodding his head. I think that the problem should be properly recognised and overcome, because it is an important problem for my constituents and those of other Members of the House.

Although I welcome what has been proposed, it has not gone far enough. That is why I will vote for the Labour amendment. The Secretary of State promised that there would be a further review of the issue, and I hope that we shall have another opportunity to consider it.

The Secretary of State has been repeatedly accused of using the Child Support Act 1991 to reduce benefit costs. I would not disagree with that comment. He has constantly denied it, saying that it is not a saving and that it will not be used to allow tax reductions in future, but that it is there to improve the service and make the system fairer. I am not convinced of that.

However, the Secretary of State could convince me, and I think many others, if he would allow a small maintenance disregard. That would show clearly that he is interested in children—I believe that that is the essence of the argument—and it would provide greater benefits for poorer families. It would also satisfy those absent parents who are making their contribution, expecting that their children will be better off financially.

I seek clarification from the Secretary of State or the Minister when he replies of the changes that will take place. I understand from the speeches that have been made that regulations will be introduced, which will be the short-term proposition; then, if the Act is passed as it stands or even if it is amended, it will be introduced and brought into force in about 1996 or 1997.

I read the memorandum submitted to the Social Security Committee by the chief executive of the Child Support Agency. There is a small element near the end, under the conclusions: 6.8 Whilst we consider these achievements significant"— one might argue about that— much work clearly remains to be done. The important part is: We are currently preparing our Business Plan for 1995–96, which is bound to be a testing year. I would not argue with that. The interesting thing about that is that, if one is preparing a business plan for 1995–96, one must include what has been suggested in the changes in the regulations and look forward to the projected changes under the Act in 1997. Will that not cause confusion in preparing a business plan? From my experience of involvement in preparing business plans, one needs to look a long way ahead. If those things are going to take place, some very quick decisions must be made about the regulations and very positive proposals must be made when the Bill becomes the Act.

Mr. Burt

To save time, yes, the agency has been working on assumptions. It obviously knows what is in the House's mind. Naturally, it cannot anticipate the House passing everything, but it is fair that it should work on assumptions. So those matters have been taken into consideration. I take the hon. Gentleman's point.

Mr. Thompson

I am grateful to the Minister. That allows me to sleep a little easier tonight.

As I said earlier, when the Bill becomes an Act it will partially humanise the Child Support Act 1991. If only it went a little further. I should like the next stage to take place, and my colleagues and I will campaign genuinely to humanise the Child Support Agency.

Hon. Members on both sides of the House have talked about the problems that give rise to the need for a Child Support Agency, and the reason why we need legislation to control the difficult position of separated parents, of divorced people and of children, with single-parent families in many cases. It is a question of the laws in this country as regards aspects of divorce.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bow and Poplar (Ms Gordon) mentioned family courts. I know that it would be difficult to introduce appropriate legislation, but it would help if we were able to begin at the beginning and modify the divorce laws—I understand that some proposals have been put forward on that. We do not necessarily want to make it more difficult to obtain a divorce, but we should produce a different pattern, with more counselling—of which I am strongly in favour.

There should be more counselling for people, from the time when they decide not to live together any longer until they embark on divorce. They should receive proper, professional advice, which costs money, to resolve the problems before they arise. I have experience, as have many hon. Members, of people—generally young people—who come to my surgery, and when I start to talk to them about their problems I find that they are divorced. When I start to probe into why they are divorced I often find that it is for the most petty reasons, which could have been resolved with the proper guidance and help at the right time. There might be fewer cases for the Child Support Agency or the divorce courts if there were a different procedure for dealing with people in the run-up to that difficult time.

9.5 pm

Mr. Bernard Jenkin (Colchester, North)

I think that we are all grateful to the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Mr. Thompson) who brings many years of practical experience to resolving the problems that beset the early years of the Child Support Agency. I listened with great interest to his comments and was particularly pleased that my hon. Friend the Minister was able to respond on the subject of average incomes—an issue raised in the hon. Gentleman's speech. I also support the hon. Gentleman in his efforts to persuade the Government to humanise the Child Support Agency. As he suggested towards the end of his speech, the avoidance of marriage breakdowns in the first place must be the highest social objective that we should attach to everything that we do here.

I wish briefly to respond to one or two of the comments by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) who said, with great relish, that he disapproved of the CSA becoming involved in any non-benefit cases. The argument that he promulgates—that those not on benefit provide no locus for the state to interfere in the arrangements—would stand up if the courts had proved perfect at solving all the problems between such couples. But the courts have always been a cumbersome mechanism, and have always been a state mechanism. All we have done with the CSA is to substitute for one state mechanism a more effective state mechanism—we should keep that in proportion.

There is nothing magical and apolitical about the operation of the courts. The law that the courts interpret is made here, just as the regulations for the Child Support Agency are made here. I hope that—and with all due respect to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar)—the CSA will prove a little cheaper than the average family lawyer.

I had hoped to follow the speech by the hon. Member for Bow and Poplar (Ms Gordon) as I feel that she represents—1 must phrase this carefully—many of the problems that the CSA faces. However, I do not think that she represents the solution. While we must satisfy the concerns that she expresses—I am sorry that she is not in the Chamber as I say my few words about her—I do not think that we shall ever satisfy her and the particular demands that she makes.

We in this country are not subject to government by consensus of voluntary agencies. The 40 or so voluntary agencies to which the hon. Lady referred make all sorts of suggestions for their own reasons—not least to ensure that they remain popular with the various interest groups that they purport to represent. That does not necessarily mean that all their suggestions are the most practical and balanced.

The hon. Lady expressed disappointment that the system of departures offered in the Bill will be limited to a small number of cases. That was always bound to be the problem when introducing a system of discretion or appeal into the process of allocating maintenance. There would either be wide gateways, in which case the whole system would become discretionary like the courts, or narrow gateways, in which case very few people would qualify under the appeals system.

We must take comfort from the fact that we have introduced a system of appeals in order to deal with the least satisfactory cases under the formula rather than introducing a general system which makes people feel that they have received a fair hearing. No formula-based system could achieve that objective.

I was interested to hear the comments by the hon. Member for Garscadden about the system in Australia and the rubric which appears at the bottom of its Child Support Agency stationery: Taxes: building a better Australia. I do not recommend that to the hon. Gentleman as a substitute for a proper policy with regard to the Child Support Agency. However, if he were to substitute the word "Britain" for "Australia" it would portray accurately the likely Labour party policy at the next general election. I am sure that that slogan would prove very effective.

I do not apologise for the fact that the Child Support Agency saves taxpayers' money indirectly. Opposition Members who have sought to deny that fact have made a mistake. The majority of people in this country resent the idea of the state picking up the tab for the maintenance of children whose parents, between them, should be able to afford to pay for them.

I notice that the Liberal spokesperson, the hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms Lynne), is nodding in agreement. I think that it is inconsistent for her to advocate scrapping the Child Support Act 1991 and starting again if she agrees with that principle. This is the best chance that we have of getting a proper child support system off the ground. If we destroy this Act it is unlikely that we will get a second chance.

Ms Lynne

rose—

Mr. Jenkin

I have little time left, but I will give way to the hon. Lady.

Ms Lynne

I am grateful. I nodded my head because I agree that parents should pay for their children's upkeep. However, the Child Support Act is not working and a family court system would be much better.

Mr. Jenkin

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention because she has demonstrated once again that the Liberal Democrats will say one thing and then another and seek to satisfy all discontented parties without ever producing a consistent policy.

I was pleased to be involved in preparing the report by the Social Security Select Committee and I welcome the Bill. I think that the discretionary element that it introduces in dealing with departures from the formula is justified.

A case in my constituency has troubled me and I would be grateful if my hon. Friend the Minister could explain how it would be dealt with under the new legislation. When an absent parent suffers from severe diabetes and faces significant medical and dietary costs, would that qualify for consideration under the new appeals system?

I am pleased with the maintenance bonus. I think that it is preferable to the disregard which is the Opposition's alternative incentive bonus. The formula includes several new aspects, such as the travel-to-work bonus and the maintenance cap and it takes full account of second families.

I make no apology for the maintenance cap. It will not apply simply to better-off families, as the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) suggested. The cap applies to an income percentage; it is not an absolute cap in cash terms. Therefore, the income cap will apply equally to a single person who lives at home, perhaps with a parent, and who has low housing costs and a low income, and to a parent who has a second family, all the allowances and a large income. I am also pleased that the amount of additional maintenance payable will be halved.

When considering amending the Child Support Act, it is important to focus on its original objectives. I detect a growing measure of consensus across the House.

The hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Wicks) spoke eloquently of the purpose and intent of the Bill, sounding almost as if he would be supporting the Government tonight—until he was brought up short by some of my hon. Friends. I urge him to join us, none the less.

The House may be reflecting public opinion. Conservative Members, perhaps, are more enamoured of the ideas of Charles Murray; as has already been pointed out, Opposition Members may be more attracted by those of Mr. Etzione. All of us, however, see a growing need to re-establish society, whatever "society" means; my right hon. and noble Friend Lady Thatcher said that it meant families, communities, villages, towns and businesses. The Bill and the Act that it amends aim to restore some of the bloom and to remove perverse incentives that we have put into the system, which have encouraged families and communities to fragment. That is the effect of too much state support: it removes people's incentive to depend on each other within their own communities.

There are other issues that we could pursue on a future occasion—the possibility, for instance, of restoring the married couple's tax allowance and the child tax allowance. Those proposals, however, belong to a future Bill, or perhaps a future Budget.

9.15 pm

Mr. Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley)

The Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration, of which I am a member, has conducted its own investigation of the CSA and, in particular, the complaints that have been received: some 30,000 have been received since the agency's inception. Little foresight or planning was involved in its establishment, and those moving into it from other Departments were given only six weeks' training, despite the complexity of the legislation involved. That caused many problems. I do not know whether the increase to 10 weeks will improve matters.

The stopping of all new cases will of course ease the position. The Department of Social Security used to work hand in hand with the CSA, telling the agency who was on benefit and who was not. I can give two constituency examples that sum up the CSA: it is possible that not all the problems were the agency's fault, but most of them were.

A constituent of mine, a young lady with three children receiving family income support, was reported to the CSA as receiving benefit. The CSA duly sent her a form; it wanted to know her husband's whereabouts, because she was entitled to child support. She wrote back to the agency, explaining that her husband had been dead for five years. The agency did not believe her, because it had been told that she was receiving family income support and therefore assumed that she must have a husband. It sent her another form, insisting that she sign it and explain where her husband was. I am afraid that I cannot give the second example, because there is not enough time.

Such things would not happen if we had the family courts that were mentioned the other day. I believe that the position will become worse because of the new appeals system; cases are backing up, and a crisis is set to explode again. I am sure that the Parliamentary Commissioner, Mr. Reid, will have another flood of complaints to deal with.

Given those 30,000 complaints, people may wonder what compensation has been paid. In fact, hardly any was paid: 16 people received compensation. That was a shambles in itself. As the Select Committee has said, the whole idea of the CSA and the complaints system was a shambles. The Committee said: We criticise the Department for not ensuring that such measures to deal with complaints and backlogs were introduced sooner. In other words, everyone in the Department allowed the backlog to build up until it became a big mushroom, which exploded at the end, and we see the consequences of that.

In the Select Committee, we had the Minister in front of us, and I recall that when we questioned him he said that it was not his responsibility to oversee what was going on; that he was responsible only for putting the Act in place and that it was up to the officials. We disagreed with him. We thought that it was his responsibility to have briefings with officials and, if things were going wrong, to see that they were put right. He did not. His attitude was, "It was not my department. It was not my area. It was somebody else's. I was the Minister. I was there only to put the Act in place." We criticised that. It is in the report—

Mr. Burt

I did not say that.

Mr. Campbell

The Minister did say that. He said that it was not his responsibility. He said that he was a Minister, that he was not there to oversee the day-to-day running of the CSA. We told him that he should have been aware of what was happening, that he should have been aware of the backlog and the mess that it was in.

I say this quite honestly. I think that a bigger mess is coming and that the Minister will be in trouble again. I believe that the review procedure will just pile up again. People are crying out for reviews, because they do not know what is happening or what they will have to pay. One gentleman came into my office only two weeks ago. He had filled in the form last June. He wanted to pay his money. He was not one of these "getter outs". The first letter that he received from the CSA was in November. It said that he would have to pay £70 a week and that he owed £2,000—to the mother of the child in this case. What sort of agency is that? What sort of set-up is that? No wonder people's backs are up. Here was a young lad who was working, who wanted to pay his money yet he got a letter after six months to tell him that he was in debt for £2,000 and that he must pay £70 a week—after being in the courts and paying £20.

That has been the problem with the CSA. The Minister never looked at it. That is one of the criticisms of the ombudsman. The Minister never planned it. He should have looked at what happened to the disability allowance. He never did and that has been the problem. I hope that the new measure will be better, but I very much doubt it.

9.22 pm

Mr. Keith Bradley (Manchester, Withington)

This has been an interesting and wide-ranging debate. Although there has been some comment about the lack of numbers in the Chamber, there have been 14 Back-Bench contributions, all giving various thoughtful comments about the way in which the legislation has worked to date and about the hopes and aspirations for the changes that will come about through the Bill. It is worth while briefly pulling together one or two of those themes and pressing the Minister on one or two of the points.

A number of hon. Members raised the point about whether, before it goes into Standing Committee, the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee or other scrutiny Committee to ensure that the detail is properly considered. I should be grateful if the Minister would comment on that proposal.

On behalf of the Opposition, I add our tributes to the staff who have laboured under great difficulties during the years since the agency was set up. I reinforce the point that adequate resources are required in future for the training of all the current staff and the new staff who will be taken on to deal with the consequences of change to the formula and of the departure appeal system, to ensure that there is no erosion in confidence as a result of the pressures that they have to undertake. Although we welcome the Bill because of the way in which it addresses some of the problems that have been identified, I would not go as far as the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan), who suggested that the Bill is revolutionary. The debate would have been different if the Bill had fallen into that category.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Broadgreen (Mrs. Kennedy) and others that if this debate had taken place 12 months ago, there might have been a different response from hon. Members. That is because there is some recognition that the major shortcomings of the original legislation are at last being addressed. The Secretary of State was less than generous in his comments about our reasoned amendment to the original legislation, in which we highlighted property settlements.

Mr. Lilley

I specifically mentioned that, but it was only in the context that future property settlements might bring about the problem that the hon. Gentleman mentions. There was no reference to the so-called retrospective aspect, which is what has caused concern.

Mr. Bradley

I shall return to the issue of property settlements. I had the distinct feeling that the Minister was being less than generous, or even perhaps lugubrious, as he has been throughout the debate, on that point.

I shall look briefly at both elements of the package—the regulations and the Bill—because although that is a package, the Bill has sometimes been confused with some of the regulations that will be presented in less than four weeks. I share the concerns of my hon. Friends about the lack of time for proper parliamentary scrutiny of those regulations and the speed at which they will come into effect. They were laid only last week. I thought that the Government would have learnt a lesson from trying to rush through changes without proper parliamentary scrutiny. The lack of such scrutiny may again lead to further administrative chaos, the agency will fall into disrepute and there will be a subsequent public outcry if the Government do not get it right.

Now is not the time to rub the Minister's nose further into the report that was issued today and I do not intend to do that. We want to look forward. I hope that he will allow proper scrutiny of the regulations. We all have to try to rebuild confidence, and the Government must ensure that the changes are adequate and relevant and that the agency can implement them efficiently rather than add to the chaos. To ensure public confidence, the Minister should provide details of precisely when the regulations will be debated before they are implemented on 18 April. I urge him to do that.

It is clear that, while many changes to the formula and the introduction of the appeals system are welcome, we have missed an opportunity to tackle other fundamental issues. First, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) has highlighted, the failure to introduce a child care disregard is particularly disappointing and is the principal reason for our clear, reasoned amendment, which concisely presents our position on the Bill.

Many organisations such as the citizens advice bureaux and the Child Poverty Action Group have supplied powerful evidence showing the struggle by lone parents to bring up children on benefit. A disregard would help at the point at which they need money, and would provide an incentive for absent parents to pay. The proposal in the Bill to allow parents with care to accrue a lump sum which is paid on taking work may help some people in the longer term, but by no means all children will benefit. I shall return to that matter. Moreover, the implementation date of the proposal is more than two years away, whereas many of the regulations, which we shall debate, will come into force in merely four weeks' time, as I have said.

The second point, which may be more contentious, is the benefit penalty to which many hon. Members have referred. I ask the Minister to look carefully at that point and to initiate further research into reduced benefit directions. As he knows, from next month, the reduction will be £9.30 a week for the first six months and then £4.65 a week for a further year. Clearly, that is harsh. A large amount of money will be taken from families, particularly lone parents, on benefit. Although I accept some of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) about collusion in these matters, I suggest that we need further information and research to ensure that families who are struggling to bring up children on benefit are not being unfairly penalised.

Thirdly, in changing the standard formula, the Government have not taken the opportunity to tackle two other contentious aspects—the parents as carer element and the fact that new partners' income, in a small number of cases, increases the maintenance assessment. We stress that the introduction of the departure appeal does not negate the need to ensure that the formula is as fair as possible at the starting point. If it is, fewer people, we hope, will need to resort to the departure appeal system.

Many other matters are dealt with through the regulations—the first part of the package. Again, I press the Minister to tell us when the House will have the opportunity to debate them.

It is interesting to note that the first nine clauses of the Bill introduce the departure system. Again, I take issue with the Secretary of State. We believe strongly that we have called for an appeals system throughout the process. He was rather disingenuous to deny that point. Although the Government expects that departure will not be used often, the grounds cover a wide variety of circumstances, as outlined in schedule 2. Many of the departure criteria are the result of the broad-brush approach, which has been introduced through regulations and changes to those regulations, especially in terms of travel-to-work costs, the interpretation of extravagant life style or substantial assets and the existence of pre-April 1993 capital and property settlements.

As I said that I would, I return to the point about pre-April 1993 capital and property settlements. The answer given by the Secretary of State on that point was unsatisfactory. My hon. Friend the Member for Garscadden outlined clearly how past and future settlements of property could be considered. I reinforce his request to the Minister to look again at that point. I also ask that, when the Bill goes into Committee, we shall be able to pursue that point more fully.

There is obvious concern that the new system will not be able to cope with the number of departure requests, that not enough staff will be employed in the process and that the child support appeal tribunals will not be able to cope. The Floor seems to be shaking underneath me at this point. The strength of the argument is obviously getting through to the whole House. Will the Minister comment on the fact that it is possible under the provisions of the Bill for the chair of the appeals tribunal to sit alone? Perhaps it is a recognition of the number of cases that may be brought forward by the departure appeals. Has the Secretary of State decided that he does not wish to add further chaos to the administration of the system by introducing that procedure?

Further, given that the details of departure circumstances will be given in regulations and that the Secretary of State has the power to prescribe other circumstances, it is difficult to know how they will be interpreted in practice. The Secretary of State can also, of course, prescribe limits on variations from the standard formula. We shall pursue that point further in Committee, but suffice it to say at this stage that a number of other costs should be taken into consideration. I am thinking of work-related costs, particularly the expensive child care costs that a mother may face on returning to work.

Clause 10 provides for a maintenance bonus for parents with care on income support or jobseeker's allowance along similar lines to the proposed back-to-work bonus available to those on part-time earnings in the Jobseekers Bill. Much of the detail of the bonus will obviously follow in regulation. The White Paper states that, if maintenance is paid, income support claimants will receive a credit of up to £5 each a week. That credit will be paid as a lump sum of up to £1,000 when the claimant leaves income support to take up work of 16 hours a week or more. As many hon. Members have already pointed out, the claimant will take several years to accrue that maximum. Given the average length of an income support claim, the majority of payments will be well below that amount. The limit of £5 a week compares with the back-to-work bonus weekly credit of 50 per cent. of earnings over the small earnings disregard.

The back-to-work bonus is to be introduced in October 1996. Given the similar training and systems that will be required for both bonuses, it is miserly not to introduce the maintenance bonus at the very latest at the same time as the back-to-work bonus comes in under the jobseeker's allowance. Even that is a highly unsatisfactory delay, given that the CSA is having to implement significant changes which favour absent parents. A way should be found for the Benefits Agency to introduce the maintenance bonus in October 1995.

Time is extremely short and the state of the building is extremely worrying, so I shall quickly mention clauses 18 and 19, about which we have heard so much. They refer to delays in bringing forward maintenance agreements pre-dating April 1993. I shall not rehearse the arguments further, but the deferral prevents the very groups of parents with care who had most to gain from applying to the CSA from doing so. It also penalises second families, where the father has received increased demands from the CSA, but his partner cannot apply to the CSA to take into account her children from a previous marriage.

The reluctance to deal with that group fuels accusations that the Government are concerned only with those on benefit and benefit savings and reinforces the view that the Bill is Treasury led, rather than being drafted to address the real needs of maintenance payments and the cost of children.

It is important that we properly and adequately scrutinise the Bill in Committee. We intend to be constructive in that task, and we shall not unduly delay the progress of the Bill. The Bill does not come into effect until 1997, so there is adequate time for proper scrutiny. As I said, we shall be constructive. Although we recognise that the Bill attempts to address the appalling shortcomings of the original legislation, we believe that we may have an opportunity to address other matters further in Committee.

As the Bill addresses key issues for which the Opposition have been pressing for many months, and as the Government have finally recognised those points, we shall not vote against Second Reading tonight. However, the failure to recognise the injustice of not allowing the parent with care, normally the mother who is on benefits, to gain from child maintenance payments is unacceptable. That is why we have tabled our amendment.

The Government's continued failure to address that issue leads us to believe that, yet again, they are more concerned with the diktats of the Treasury than with finally getting the matter right and ensuring that the real costs of caring are recognised in the legislation and that mothers benefit properly from a proper maintenance system.

Madam Speaker

I do not know why hon. Members are concerned about a few vibrations. Throughout its history, the House has withstood more than that and smiled back at it.

9.40 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Alistair Burt)

I shall certainly smile back at the various vibrations that have come my way over the past 24 hours. I am delighted to respond to the vibrations that have arisen from the debate.

I thank all my colleagues for their usual constructive contributions to a subject that we have debated on many occasions, most often in the right spirit. That spirit was demonstrated once again today. I shall respond briefly to two or three of the points raised by the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Bradley), although I have a great deal of ground to cover in relation to concerns raised by other Members.

With regard to the regulations that were laid last week, we have no problem with a date. That is in the hands of the usual channels. I have no problem with the debate, but I do not think that a date has been set yet. However, that is not a particular problem.

I do not think that the Bill should go to a Special Standing Committee. The issue has been trawled extensively and we want to get on with it, as the hon. Member for Withington indicated. I cannot see any point in bringing the Bill before a Special Standing Committee to take yet further evidence. One of the reasons why we have reached this stage is that we all listened to the evidence about the workings of the CSA over the past two years. I do not believe that we need take such matters any further.

The background to the debate can be characterised in two ways. First, as several hon. Members, including the hon. Members for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) and for Liverpool, Broadgreen (Mrs. Kennedy) said, the fact that this is a reform Bill as opposed to a Bill to abolish the CSA is a success in itself. We have come some way in relation to the concerns of the hon. Member for Broadgreen about whether the CSA could succeed. I have told the agency staff that the fact that we have reached this stage is a measure of the fact that we have proved the point about the principle behind the CSA.

We have tried to listen. The Select Committees have played their role, as have all Back Benchers and the constituents who have lobbied us. We have tried to respond to the concerns that have been raised about policy and administration.

In response to the point raised by the hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell) about the particular strictures identified by the Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey), I felt that the hon. Gentleman was slightly unfair in trying to suggest that I was avoiding responsibility. That was not the case.

I pointed out to the Committee that there are different functions within the Department in terms of the day-to-day responsibility for the running of the agency and the Minister's policy-making job. However, I have to take responsibility from the Dispatch Box for everything that the agency might do. But in no sense was I suggesting that it was a hands-off approach, that it was up to the agency and that it was not my problem.

Mr. Ronnie Campbell

We agreed to a passage that reads: We consider that Ministers were at fault in being so easily satisfied with the assurances of officials.

Mr. Burt

A passage that I could read out suggested that my job in dealing with the day-to-day work was to be much more positive and to say to the chief executive: 'This is not good enough, we must change this. Bring me your proposals for how we can deal with this basic problem of communication.' Over a period of time, of course, those changes are made. I said that it was our role to prompt those changes. That was my particular job. However, I hear the hon. Gentleman's criticism. The Government will respond in due course.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the pile-up of reviews. In the year to date, the Department has received 22,100 applications for second-tier reviews. It has cleared 22,500. There is a backlog of some 8,000, which ought to be cleared towards the end of this month. That is a measure of the steps that we have taken to deal with some of the problems that have rightly been raised. In no sense have we ever considered that we should have a hands-off role. Various tributes have been paid to the work of the staff of the Child Support Agency. I am grateful for that. The hon. Member for Broadgreen referred to the important issue of field staff. I was grateful that she did that. The staff have been in day-to-day contact with many people affected by the agency. They have put up with a great deal. They work extremely hard.

I am pleased when any hon. Member takes the opportunity to go and see the work of the regional centres of the CSA. For all the criticism of the CSA and its work, few hon. Members have gone to see it at first hand to understand the process and how it can be undertaken. I should be grateful to any hon. Member who visited a centre. Those who have done so have seen the improvements and the work that has been done. I appreciate what they have said about it.

My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Mr. Hendry) raised the issue of the telephone service. He appreciated the telephone and handling service that Members of Parliament received. He expressed concern that such a service was not available to constituents. We have taken great steps to improve the telephone service available to all members of the public. We have a charter target time of responding to 80 per cent. of calls to the national inquiry line and the Child Support Agency centre lines within 20 seconds. The figures for the year to date for the national inquiry line show that we hit that target in 92 per cent. of cases. For the CSACs, we hit the target in 61 per cent. of cases. That is not as good as we would like, but it is far better than it used to be. It is right that we deal with concerns raised by constituents as well as those raised by Members of Parliament.

The fact that we are still here endeavouring to put right the administration of the CSA is one part of the background to the Bill. The second part of the background, which was referred to by several hon. Members, is the wider problem of family background and family breakdown. We could spend a great deal of time on that subject. I appreciated the speeches made by the hon. Members for Corydon, North-West (Mr. Wicks) and for Broadgreen and by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan). A great deal in the subject ought to worry the House of Commons.

Family breakdown is responsible for more misery and despair that I see in my surgeries than virtually anything else. Damage is done over a period of time, not only at the time of the breakdown. The breakdown is the culmination of a variety of pressures on families. The change that is occurring in the country as a result of that growing pattern is immense. It leads to huge consequences for not only child support but housing, education and wider social issues, which may involve destructive children and such problems. I suspect that we shall return to the issue many times. It is a matter of great seriousness, on which the House needs to put its collective heads together.

The two issues to which I have referred form the background to the Bill. Several of my colleagues rightly concentrated on the proposals in the Bill and the wider proposals in the White Paper. A broad welcome was given by the vast majority of hon. Members who spoke to the measures introduced in the Bill. A particular welcome was given to a more flexible system, which we call the departure system. It provides the opportunity for some of the hard cases that cannot be dealt with by the formula to be dealt with in a different way.

I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby) saw the need to respond to what he considered to be the good, sensible pressure from his local group. Several hon. Members commented that, although some of the national groups had given a great deal of trouble, some of the local groups were sensible and straightforward. We have done our best to respond to those who have been sensible and responsible. We have not had any time for those who have caused harm or distress to members of the agency or others in the way in which they have gone about their protest.

The travel-to-work concession that we are seeking to bring in was welcomed by hon. Members. The concession is calculated on a straight-line basis, and there is a sensible reason for that. We could work out by computer from post code to post code the distance between where people live and where they work, but a straight line means that one does not get arguments about how people get from their homes to their place of work. There will always be arguments—often raised by spouses—about what route people have taken and whether they are going slightly too far to avoid a maintenance assessment. We decided that the best way to deal with the matter was on a straight-line basis.

My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak said that there would be anomalies in some districts where straight lines might look simple on the map but, because of geography, would not be so simple on the ground. In that area, the departure systems will assist in the broad-brush elements that are to be brought in by regulation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber) welcomed the change that we had made in relation to property and so-called clean-break settlements. Again, we are trying to bring in a more immediate opportunity for relief through a broad-brush system in the regulations, and that will come into effect soon. But we recognise that there can be a broad-brush approach only if the departure system is behind that, and if we are giving proper and adequate consideration to the problems that people may raise concerning the regulations.

The hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) tried to claim some spurious credit for the appeal system, which he has always been on about. The point that we are trying to make is that we know that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned that system over a period of time, and we have not dismissed it. But if we do not want to go back to a second-guess system of total discretion, where do we draw the lines and boundaries? We offered opportunity after opportunity for the hon. Gentleman to enlighten us, but he did not.

When we produced the Bill, we showed that we had tackled that knotty problem by bringing forward gateways. That is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was right to chastise the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he tried to go about it. My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin) said that the gateways had been the essence of the system, and it was the Government who thought of them rather than the hon. Gentleman.

The hon. Member for Birkenhead rightly said that the way in which my right hon. Friend has given support to the parent with care through credit rather than a disregard was not only ingenious, but an incentive to go into work. We thought carefully about a disregard, but we felt that it would not do the job as well as a credit system.

Mr. Frank Field

Does not the Minister agree that we could have had both systems?

Mr. Burt

That is possible, but we would find ourselves with a problem to which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State referred. We would be giving an unfair advantage to some parents who would be able to get a supplement on their income support that was not available to others. We would again be looking to the state and the taxpayer to provide a bonus, when the Government are trying to wean people off benefit and off the dependency state to which the hon. Member for Croydon, North-West referred. A credit system fulfils the Government's objectives. We reject the benefit dependency culture, and we spend a lot of time encouraging people away from that and into work.

The prize for the most cynical speech of the evening goes, without doubt, to the lady in green, the hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms Lynne). It is some time since the House was treated to such a neat about-turn for the spurious purpose of picking up some stray Labour votes. That was the gist of what the hon. Lady had to say. I would have had rather more time for her principled position in favour of family courts if we had heard that argument advanced week after week in a principled manner by the Liberal Democrats. We heard nothing about that subject at all until tonight, when it was pulled out of a hat like a rabbit. The hon. Lady knows full well that it is very easy to promise something that has no chance of coming about, because it offers her the opportunity to be all things to all men.

Ms Lynne

I proposed family courts because the Child Support Act is not working and the Bill does not go nearly far enough. It is a disgrace for the Minister to stand there and pretend that it does. He will have to come back time and again because the Act will continue not to work.

Mr. Burt

It is the collective view of the rest of us that the Child Support Act has an opportunity to work, is working better and is the preferred option of the House. The hon. Lady never quite escaped the charge levelled by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that she was offering the absent parent the chance to pay less and the parent with care the opportunity to receive more, which struck me as typically Liberal.

Ms Jean Corston (Bristol, East)

rose—

Mr. Burt

No, I will not give way. The hon. Lady has not been in her place throughout the debate.

A number of other issues were raised and I shall go through them briefly. We had a useful, but brief talk about Mr. Amitai Etzioni, whose extremely interesting lecture I attended the other week with other hon. Members. Much in his principles started on these Conservative Benches—not on the Opposition Benches—such as self-reliance and the opportunity for people to work together without state interference.

My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe) dealt with the difficult issue of whether we should constantly be looking for further reforms and progress, or whether we should have some stability. We must balance that by not shutting ourselves off from the possibility of further reform, but it is now important that we give the system some sense of stability. That is why I appreciated the way in which the hon. Member for Withington dealt with the matter. We want to improve the operation of child support, but it is crucial that we make the general public understand that we have made the major reforms and that there is a structure on which people can rely. If we do not do so, we shall have failed.

My hon. Friend the Member for Westbury asked whether the term "absent parent" is a good one; hon. Members on both sides of the House might welcome a slightly off-the-hoof response. I have had reservations about that term and so has my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. We are accordingly renewing a suggestion made some time ago—we are not fixed in our view of that term. Originally, we tried to come up with a better term, but no one found one that was acceptable. If hon. Members want to try again, I am open to the suggestion, as I have been moved by the way in which a variety of good parents, who do not feel that they are absent, have felt that they have been unfairly characterised by the term. It was never meant to be pejorative, but that is what people felt, so let us see what we can do about it. I am very open to that.

With regard to whether we should spend more time discussing the matter, I want colleagues on both sides of the House to know that I am conscious that the agency must implement what it is changing extremely well. We have all suffered from the poor implementation of the 1991 Act and it is crucial that we implement these changes well. I am prepared to allow proper time not only for consideration, but for the practical putting into effect of the matters that we have been discussing.

Tonight's Bill is the culmination of a great deal of thought and consideration that have been given to child support during the past 18 months. Through two Social Security Select Committees and innumerable debates and questions, the basic principle behind child support—that parents should be financially responsible for their children before the taxpayers, in so far as they can afford it—has come through unchallenged.

The Child Support Agency's role in dealing with child support has been challenged, but it has also been given approval to continue. The Government have heard, listened and responded to proper concerns about the agency's operations and have authorised and initiated reforms, some of which are in the Bill. The main part of the Bill's reforms demonstrates that we are a listening Government—not merely to one section that is affected by the revolution in child support, but to all sides.

With regard to parents with care of the child, their concerns are still paramount. The average payment of maintenance, which was too low, is now higher, reflecting the change in the needs of children.

The changes that we are making tonight will encourage compliance and, therefore, the payment of maintenance, which must be helpful. The maintenance credit bonus will be of significant assistance in helping people back into work and will be of benefit to all parents with care, especially those who depend solely on income support. The formula changes will assist parents without day-to-day care of the child, and Parliament must show the taxpayer that it remains constant to its view that the burden must be held by the parent, not by society at large when parents can afford to pay. That is rightly parents' responsibility.

It is right that the burden on the taxpayer is lifted; it is right to ensure decent maintenance for children; it is right that the system of administration should be improved; and it is right that this reform package, which both improves the formula and introduces appropriate flexibility to the system, should have the full support of the House.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 258, Noes 290.

Division No. 104]	[10.00 pm
AYES
Abbott, Ms Diane	Davidson, Ian
Adams, Mrs Irene	Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)
Ainger, Nick	Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)
Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)	Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)
Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)	Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'dge H'I)
Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)	Dewar, Donald
Armstrong, Hilary	Dixon, Don
Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy	Dobson, Frank
Ashton, Joe	Donohoe, Brian H
Austin-Walker, John	Dowd, Jim
Banks, Tony (Newham NW)	Dunnachie, Jimmy
Barron, Kevin	Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth
Battle, John	Eagle, Ms Angela
Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret	Eastham, Ken
Beith, Rt Hon A J	Etherington, Bill
Benn, Rt Hon Tony	Evans, John (St Helens N)
Benton, Joe	Ewing, Mrs Margaret
Bermingham, Gerald	Fatchett, Derek
Berry, Roger	Field, Frank (Birkenhead)
Betts, Clive	Fisher, Mark
Blair, Rt Hon Tony	Foster, Rt Hon Derek
Blunkett, David	Foulkes, George
Boateng, Paul	Fyfe, Maria
Bradley, Keith	Galloway, George
Bray, Dr Jeremy	Gapes, Mike
Brown, Gordon (Dunfermline E)	Garrett, John
Brown, N (N'c'tle upon Tyne E)	George, Bruce
Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)	Gerrard, Neil
Burden, Richard	Godman, Dr Norman A
Byers, Stephen	Godsiff, Roger
Caborn, Richard	Golding, Mrs Llin
Callaghan, Jim	Gordon, Mildred
Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)	Graham, Thomas
Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)	Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)
Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)	Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)
Campbell-Savours, D N	Gunnell, John
Cann, Jamie	Hain, Peter
Chidgey, David	Hall, Mike
Chisholm, Malcolm	Hanson, David
Church, Judith	Hardy, Peter
Clapham, Michael	Harman, Ms Harriet
Clark, Dr David (South Shields)	Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy
Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)	Heppell, John
Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)	Hill, Keith (Streatham)
Clelland, David	Hinchliffe, David
Clwyd, Mrs Ann	Hodge, Margaret
Coffey, Ann	Hogg, Norman (Cumbernauld)
Cohen, Harry	Hood, Jimmy
Connarty, Michael	Hoon, Geoffrey
Cook, Frank (Stockton N)	Howarth, George (Knowsley North)
Corbett, Robin	Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)
Corbyn, Jeremy	Hoyle, Doug
Corston, Jean	Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)
Cousins, Jim	Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)
Cox, Tom	Hughes, Roy (Newport E)
Cummings, John	Hughes, Simon (Southwark)
Cunliffe, Lawrence	Hutton, John
Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)	Illsley, Eric
Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr John	Ingram, Adam
Dafis, Cynog	Jackson, Glenda (H'stead)
Dalyell, Tam	Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)
Darling, Alistair	Jamieson, David

Janner, Greville	Pendry, Tom
Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)	Pickthall, Colin
Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)	Pike, Peter L
Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)	Pope, Greg
Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)	Powell, Ray (Ogmore)
Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)	Prentice, Bridget (Lew'm E)
Jowell, Tessa	Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)
Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald	Primarolo, Dawn
Keen, Alan	Purchase, Ken
Kennedy, Charles (Ross, C&S)	Quin, Ms Joyce
Kennedy, Jane (Lpool Brdgn)	Radice, Giles
Khabra, Piara S	Randall, Stuart
Kilfoyle, Peter	Raynsford, Nick
Kirkwood, Archy	Redmond, Martin
Lestor, Joan (Eccles)	Reid, Dr John
Lewis, Terry	Robertson, George (Hamilton)
Liddell, Mrs Helen	Robinson, Geoffrey (Co'try NW)
Litherland, Robert	Rogers, Allan
Livingstone, Ken	Rooker, Jeff
Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)	Rooney, Terry
Llwyd,Elfyn	Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)
Loyden, Eddie	Ruddock, Joan
Lynne, Ms Liz	Salmond, Alex
McAllion, John	Sedgemore, Brian
McAvoy, Thomas	Sheerman, Barry
McCartney, Ian	Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert
McCrea, The Reverend William	Shore, Rt Hon Peter
Macdonald, Calum	Short, Clare
McKelvey, William	Simpson, Alan
Mackinlay, Andrew	Skinner, Dennis
McLeish, Henry	Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)
McMaster, Gordon	Smith, Chris (Isl'ton S & F'sbury)
MacShane, Denis	Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)
McWilliam, John	Snape, Peter
Madden, Max	Soley, Clive
Maddock, Diana	Spearing, Nigel
Mahon, Alice	Spellar, John
Mandelson, Peter	Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)
Marek, Dr John	Steinberg, Gerry
Marshall, David (Shettleston)	Stevenson, George
Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)	Strang, Dr. Gavin
Martin, Michael J (Springburn)	Straw, Jack
Martlew, Eric	Sutcliffe, Gerry
Maxton, John	Taylor, Matthew (Truro)
Meacher, Michael	Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)
Meale, Alan	Timms, Stephen
Michael, Alun	Tipping, Paddy
Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)	Touhig, Don
Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)	Turner, Dennis
Milburn, Alan	Tyler, Paul
Miller, Andrew	Vaz, Keith
Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)	Wallace, James
Moonie, Dr Lewis	Walley, Joan
Morgan, Rhodri	Wardell, Gareth (Gower)
Morley, Elliot	Wareing, Robert N
Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wy'nshawe)	Watson, Mike
Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)	Wicks, Malcolm
Mowlam, Marjorie	Wigley, Dafydd
Mudie, George	Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)
Mullin, Chris	Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)
Murphy, Paul	Wilson, Brian
Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon	Worthington, Tony
O'Brien, Mike (N W'kshire)	Wray, Jimmy
O'Brien, William (Normanton)	Wright, Dr Tony
O'Hara, Edward	Young, David (Bolton SE)
Olner, Bill
O'Neill, Martin	Tellers for the Ayes:
Parry, Robert	Ms. Estelle Morris and
Pearson, Ian	Mrs. Barbara Roche.

Question accordingly negatived.

Main Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No.60 (Amendment on Second or Third Reading):—

The House divided: Ayes 287,Noes 40.

Division No. 104]	[10.00 pm
AYES
Abbott, Ms Diane	Davidson, Ian
Adams, Mrs Irene	Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)
Ainger, Nick	Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)
Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)	Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)
Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)	Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'dge H'I)
Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)	Dewar, Donald
Armstrong, Hilary	Dixon, Don
Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy	Dobson, Frank
Ashton, Joe	Donohoe, Brian H
Austin-Walker, John	Dowd, Jim
Banks, Tony (Newham NW)	Dunnachie, Jimmy
Barron, Kevin	Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth
Battle, John	Eagle, Ms Angela
Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret	Eastham, Ken
Beith, Rt Hon A J	Etherington, Bill
Benn, Rt Hon Tony	Evans, John (St Helens N)
Benton, Joe	Ewing, Mrs Margaret
Bermingham, Gerald	Fatchett, Derek
Berry, Roger	Field, Frank (Birkenhead)
Betts, Clive	Fisher, Mark
Blair, Rt Hon Tony	Foster, Rt Hon Derek
Blunkett, David	Foulkes, George
Boateng, Paul	Fyfe, Maria
Bradley, Keith	Galloway, George
Bray, Dr Jeremy	Gapes, Mike
Brown, Gordon (Dunfermline E)	Garrett, John
Brown, N (N'c'tle upon Tyne E)	George, Bruce
Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)	Gerrard, Neil
Burden, Richard	Godman, Dr Norman A
Byers, Stephen	Godsiff, Roger
Caborn, Richard	Golding, Mrs Llin
Callaghan, Jim	Gordon, Mildred
Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)	Graham, Thomas
Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)	Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)
Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)	Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)
Campbell-Savours, D N	Gunnell, John
Cann, Jamie	Hain, Peter
Chidgey, David	Hall, Mike
Chisholm, Malcolm	Hanson, David
Church, Judith	Hardy, Peter
Clapham, Michael	Harman, Ms Harriet
Clark, Dr David (South Shields)	Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy
Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)	Heppell, John
Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)	Hill, Keith (Streatham)
Clelland, David	Hinchliffe, David
Clwyd, Mrs Ann	Hodge, Margaret
Coffey, Ann	Hogg, Norman (Cumbernauld)
Cohen, Harry	Hood, Jimmy
Connarty, Michael	Hoon, Geoffrey
Cook, Frank (Stockton N)	Howarth, George (Knowsley North)
Corbett, Robin	Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)
Corbyn, Jeremy	Hoyle, Doug
Corston, Jean	Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)
Cousins, Jim	Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)
Cox, Tom	Hughes, Roy (Newport E)
Cummings, John	Hughes, Simon (Southwark)
Cunliffe, Lawrence	Hutton, John
Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)	Illsley, Eric
Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr John	Ingram, Adam
Dafis, Cynog	Jackson, Glenda (H'stead)
Dalyell, Tam	Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)
Darling, Alistair	Jamieson, David

Janner, Greville	Pendry, Tom
Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)	Pickthall, Colin
Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)	Pike, Peter L
Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)	Pope, Greg
Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)	Powell, Ray (Ogmore)
Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)	Prentice, Bridget (Lew'm E)
Jowell, Tessa	Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)
Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald	Primarolo, Dawn
Keen, Alan	Purchase, Ken
Kennedy, Charles (Ross, C&S)	Quin, Ms Joyce
Kennedy, Jane (Lpool Brdgn)	Radice, Giles
Khabra, Piara S	Randall, Stuart
Kilfoyle, Peter	Raynsford, Nick
Kirkwood, Archy	Redmond, Martin
Lestor, Joan (Eccles)	Reid, Dr John
Lewis, Terry	Robertson, George (Hamilton)
Liddell, Mrs Helen	Robinson, Geoffrey (Co'try NW)
Litherland, Robert	Rogers, Allan
Livingstone, Ken	Rooker, Jeff
Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)	Rooney, Terry
Llwyd,Elfyn	Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)
Loyden, Eddie	Ruddock, Joan
Lynne, Ms Liz	Salmond, Alex
McAllion, John	Sedgemore, Brian
McAvoy, Thomas	Sheerman, Barry
McCartney, Ian	Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert
McCrea, The Reverend William	Shore, Rt Hon Peter
Macdonald, Calum	Short, Clare
McKelvey, William	Simpson, Alan
Mackinlay, Andrew	Skinner, Dennis
McLeish, Henry	Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)
McMaster, Gordon	Smith, Chris (Isl'ton S & F'sbury)
MacShane, Denis	Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)
McWilliam, John	Snape, Peter
Madden, Max	Soley, Clive
Maddock, Diana	Spearing, Nigel
Mahon, Alice	Spellar, John
Mandelson, Peter	Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)
Marek, Dr John	Steinberg, Gerry
Marshall, David (Shettleston)	Stevenson, George
Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)	Strang, Dr. Gavin
Martin, Michael J (Springburn)	Straw, Jack
Martlew, Eric	Sutcliffe, Gerry
Maxton, John	Taylor, Matthew (Truro)
Meacher, Michael	Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)
Meale, Alan	Timms, Stephen
Michael, Alun	Tipping, Paddy
Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)	Touhig, Don
Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)	Turner, Dennis
Milburn, Alan	Tyler, Paul
Miller, Andrew	Vaz, Keith
Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)	Wallace, James
Moonie, Dr Lewis	Walley, Joan
Morgan, Rhodri	Wardell, Gareth (Gower)
Morley, Elliot	Wareing, Robert N
Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wy'nshawe)	Watson, Mike
Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)	Wicks, Malcolm
Mowlam, Marjorie	Wigley, Dafydd
Mudie, George	Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)
Mullin, Chris	Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)
Murphy, Paul	Wilson, Brian
Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon	Worthington, Tony
O'Brien, Mike (N W'kshire)	Wray, Jimmy
O'Brien, William (Normanton)	Wright, Dr Tony
O'Hara, Edward	Young, David (Bolton SE)
Olner, Bill
O'Neill, Martin	Tellers for the Ayes:
Parry, Robert	Ms. Estelle Morris and
Pearson, Ian	Mrs. Barbara Roche.
NOES
Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)	Amess, David
Aitken, Rt Hon Jonathan	Ancram, Michael
Alexander, Richard	Arbuthnot, James
Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)	Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)
Allason, Rupert (Torbay)	Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

Ashby, David	Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)
Atkins, Robert	Fishburn, Dudley
Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)	Forman, Nigel
Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)	Forsyth, Rt Hon Michael (Stirling)
Baker, Rt Hon Kenneth (Mole V)	Forth, Eric
Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)	Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman
Baldry, Tony	Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)
Banks, Matthew (Southport)	Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)
Banks, Robert (Harrogate)	French, Douglas
Bates, Michael	Fry, Sir Peter
Batiste, Spencer	Gale, Roger
Bendall, Vivian	Gallie, Phil
Beresford, Sir Paul	Gardiner, Sir George
Body, Sir Richard	Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan
Bonsor, Sir Nicholas	Garnier, Edward
Booth, Hartley	Gill, Christopher
Boswell, Tim	Gillan, Cheryl
Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)	Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair
Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia	Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles
Bowden, Sir Andrew	Gorman, Mrs Teresa
Bowis, John	Gorst, Sir John
Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes	Grant, Sir A (SW Cambs)
Brandreth, Gyles	Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)
Brazier, Julian	Greenway, John (Ryedale)
Bright, Sir Graham	Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)
Brooke, Rt Hon Peter	Grylls, Sir Michael
Brown, M (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)	Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn
Browning, Mrs Angela	Hague, William
Bruce, Ian (Dorset)	Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archibald
Budgen, Nicholas	Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)
Burns, Simon	Hampson, Dr Keith
Burt, Alistair	Hanley, Rt Hon Jeremy
Butcher, John	Hannam, Sir John
Butler, Peter	Harris, David
Carlisle, Sir Kenneth (Lincoln)	Haselhurst, Alan
Carrington, Matthew	Hawkins, Nick
Carttiss, Michael	Hawksley, Warren
Channon, Rt Hon Paul	Heald, Oliver
Churchill, Mr	Heath, Rt Hon Sir Edward
Clappison, James	Heathcoat-Amory, David
Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)	Hendry, Charles
Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ru'clif)	Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence
Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey	Hill, James (Southampton Test)
Coe, Sebastian	Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)
Colvin, Michael	Horam, John
Congdon, David	Hordem, Rt Hon Sir Peter
Conway, Derek	Howard, Rt Hon Michael
Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)	Howarth, Alan (Strat'rd-on-A)
Coombs, Simon (Swindon)	Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)
Cope, Rt Hon Sir John	Howell, Sir Ralph (N Norfolk)
Cormack, Sir Patrick	Hughes, Robert G (Harrow W)
Cran, James	Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)
Currie, Mrs Edwina (S D'by'ire)	Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)
Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)	Hunter, Andrew
Davies, Quentin (Stamford)	Jack, Michael
Davis, David (Boothferry)	Jenkin, Bernard
Day, Stephen	Jessel, Toby
Deva, Nirj Joseph	Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey
Devlin, Tim	Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)
Dicks, Terry	Jones, Robert B (W Hertfdshr)
Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen	Jopling, Rt Hon Michael
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James	Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine
Duncan, Alan	Key, Robert
Duncan-Smith, Iain	King, Rt Hon Tom
Dunn, Bob	Kirkhope, Timothy
Durant, Sir Anthony	Knapman, Roger
Eggar, Rt Hon Tim	Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)
Elletson, Harold	Knight, Greg (Derby N)
Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)	Knight, Dame Jill (Bir'm E'st'n)
Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)	Knox, Sir David
Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)	Kynoch, George (Kincardine)
Evans, Roger (Monmouth)	Lait, Mrs Jacqui
Evennett, David	Lamont, Rt Hon Norman
Faber, David	Lawrence, Sir Ivan
Fabricant, Michael	Legg, Barry
Fenner, Dame Peggy	Leigh, Edward

Lennox-Boyd, Sir Mark	Shephard, Rt Hon Gillian
Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)	Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)
Lilley, Rt Hon Peter	Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)
Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)	Shersby, Michael
Lord, Michael	Sims, Roger
Luff, Peter	Skeet, Sir Trevor
Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas	Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)
MacGregor, Rt Hon John	Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)
MacKay, Andrew	Soames, Nicholas
Maclean, David	Spencer, Sir Derek
McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick	Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)
Maitland, Lady Olga	Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)
Malone, Gerald	Spink, Dr Robert
Mans, Keith	Sproat, Iain
Marland, Paul	Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John
Marshall, John (Hendon S)	Steen, Anthony
Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)	Stephen, Michael
Martin, David (Portsmouth S)	Stern, Michael
Mates, Michael	Stewart, Allan
Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian	Streeter, Gary
Mellor, Rt Hon David	Sumberg, David
Merchant, Piers	Sweeney, Walter
Mills, Iain	Tapsell, Sir Peter
Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)	Taylor, Ian (Esher)
Moate, Sir Roger	Taylor, John M (Solihull)
Monro, Sir Hector	Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)
Montgomery, Sir Fergus	Thomason, Roy
Nelson, Anthony	Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)
Neubert, Sir Michael	Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)
Newton, Rt Hon Tony	Thornton, Sir Malcolm
Nicholls, Patrick	Thurnham, Peter
Nicholson, David (Taunton)	Townend, John (Bridlington)
Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)	Townsend, Cyril D (Bexl'yh'th)
Norris, Steve	Tracey, Richard
Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley	Tredinnick, David
Oppenheim, Phillip	Trend, Michael
Ottaway, Richard	Trotter, Neville
Page, Richard	Twinn, Dr Ian
Paice, James	Vaughan, Sir Gerard
Patnick, Sir Irvine	Viggers, Peter
Patten, Rt Hon John	Waldegrave, Rt Hon William
Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey	Walden, George
Pawsey, James	Walker, Bill (N Tayside)
Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth	Waller, Gary
Pickles, Eric	Ward, John
Porter, David (Waveney)	Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)
Portillo, Rt Hon Michael	Waterson, Nigel
Powell, William (Corby)	Watts, John
Rathbone, Tim	Wells, Bowen
Redwood, Rt Hon John	Wheeler, Rt Hon Sir John
Renton, Rt Hon Tim	Whitney, Ray
Richards, Rod	Whittingdale, John
Riddick, Graham	Widdecombe, Ann
Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm	Wiggin, Sir Jerry
Robathan, Andrew	Wilkinson, John
Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn	Willetts, David
Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)	Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)
Robinson, Mark (Somerton)	Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld)
Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)	Wolfson, Mark
Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)	Wood, Timothy
Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela	Yeo, Tim
Ryder, Rt Hon Richard	Young, Rt Hon Sir George
Sackville, Tom
Sainsbury, Rt Hon Sir Timothy	Tellers for the Noes:
Scott, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas	Mr. Sydney Chapman and
Shaw, David (Dover)	Mr. David Lightbown.

Division No.105]	[10.15 pm
AYES
Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)	Eggar, Rt Hon Tim
Aitken, Rt Hon Jonathan	Elletson, Harold
Alexander, Richard	Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)
Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)	Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)
Allason, Rupert (Torbay)	Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)
Arness, David	Evans, Roger (Monmouth)
Ancram, Michael	Evennett, David
Arbuthnot, James	Faber, David
Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)	Fabricant, Michael
Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)	Fenner, Dame Peggy
Ashby, David	Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)
Atkins, Robert	Fishburn, Dudley
Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)	Forman, Nigel
Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)	Forsyth, Rt Hon Michael (Stirling)
Baker, Rt Hon Kenneth (Mole V)	Forth, Eric
Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)	Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman
Baldry, Tony	Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)
Banks, Matthew (Southport)	Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)
Bates, Michael	French, Douglas
Batiste, Spencer	Fry, Sir Peter
Bendall, Vivian	Gale, Roger
Beresford, Sir Paul	Gallie, Phil
Body, Sir Richard	Gardiner, Sir George
Bonsor, Sir Nicholas	Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan
Booth, Hartley	Garnier, Edward
Boswell, Tim	Gill, Christopher
Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)	Gillan, Cheryl
Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia	Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair
Bowden, Sir Andrew	Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles
Bowis, John	Gorman, Mrs Teresa
Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes	Gorst, Sir John
Brandreth, Gyles	Grant, Sir A (SW Cambs)
Brazier, Julian	Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)
Bright, Sir Graham	Greenway, John (Ryedale)
Brooke, Rt Hon Peter	Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)
Brown, M (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)	Grylls, Sir Michael
Browning, Mrs Angela	Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn
Bruce, Ian (Dorset)	Hague, William
Budgen, Nicholas	Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archibald
Burns, Simon	Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)
Burt, Alistair	Hampson, Dr Keith
Butcher, John	Hanley, Rt Hon Jeremy
Butler, Peter	Hannam, Sir John
Carlisle, Sir Kenneth (Lincoln)	Harris, David
Carrington, Matthew	Haselhurst, Alan
Carttiss, Michael	Hawkins, Nick
Channon, Rt Hon Paul	Hawksley, Warren
Churchill, Mr	Heald, Oliver
Clappison, James	Heath, Rt Hon Sir Edward
Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)	Heathcoat-Amory, David
Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ru'clif)	Hendry, Charles
Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey	Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence
Coe, Sebastian	Hill, James (Southampton Test)
Colvin, Michael	Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)
Congdon, David	Horam, John
Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)	Hordern, Rt Hon Sir Peter
Coombs, Simon (Swindon)	Howard, Rt Hon Michael
Cope, Rt Hon Sir John	Howarth, Alan (Strat'rd-on-A)
Cran, James	Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)
Currie, Mrs Edwina (S D'by'ire)	Howell, Sir Ralph (N Norfolk)
Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)	Hughes, Robert G (Harrow W)
Davies, Quentin (Stamford)	Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)
Davis, David (Boothferry)	Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)
Day, Stephen	Hunter, Andrew
Deva, Nirj Joseph	Jack, Michael
Devlin, Tim	Jenkin, Bernard
Dorrell Rt Hon Stephen	Jessel, Toby
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James	Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey
Dover, Den	Jones, Gwllym (Cardiff N)
Duncan, Alan	Jones, Robert B (W Hertfdshr)
Duncan-Smith, Iain	Jopling, Rt Hon Michael
Dunn, Bob	Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine
Durant, Sir Anthony	Key, Robert

King, Rt Hon Tom	Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)
Kirkhope, Timothy	Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela
Knapman, Roger	Ryder, Rt Hon Richard
Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)	Sackville, Tom
Knight, Greg (Derby N)	Sainsbury, Rt Hon Sir Timothy
Knight, Dame Jill (Bir'm E'st'n)	Scott, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas
Knox, Sir David	Shaw, David (Dover)
Kynoch, George (Kincardine)	Shephard, Rt Hon Gillian
Lait, Mrs Jacqui	Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)
Lamont, Rt Hon Norman	Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)
Lawrence, Sir Ivan	Shersby, Michael
Legg, Barry	Sims, Roger
Leigh, Edward	Skeet, Sir Trevor
Lennox-Boyd, Sir Mark	Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)
Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)	Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)
Lightbown, David	Soames, Nicholas
Lilley, Rt Hon Peter	Spencer, Sir Derek
Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)	Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)
Lord, Michael	Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)
Luff, Peter	Spink, Dr Robert
Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas	Sproat, Iain
MacGregor, Rt Hon John	Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)
MacKay, Andrew	Stanley, Rt Hon Sir Jonn
Maclean, David	Steen, Anthony
McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick	Stephen, Michael
Maitland, Lady Olga	Stern, Michael
Malone, Gerald	Stewart, Allan
Mans, Keith	Streeter, Gary
Mariland, Paul	Sumberg, David
Marshall, John (Hendon South)	Sweeney, Walter
Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)	Tapsell, Sir Peter
Martin, David (Portsmouth S)	Taylor, Ian (Esher)
Mates, Michael	Taylor, John M (Solihull)
Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian	Thomason, Roy
Mellor, Rt Hon David	Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)
Merchant, Piers	Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)
Mills, Iain	Thornton, Sir Malcolm
Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)	Thurnham, Peter
Moate, Sir Roger	Townend, John (Bridlington)
Monro, Sir Hector	Townsend, Cyril D (Bexl'yh'th)
Montgomery, Sir Fergus	Tracey, Richard
Nelson, Anthony	Tredinnick, David
Neubert, Sir Michael	Trend, Michael
Newton, Rt Hon Tony	Trotter, Neville
Nicholls, Patrick	Twinn, Dr Ian
Nicholson, David (Taunton)	Vaughan, Sir Gerard
Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)	Viggers, Peter
Norris, Steve	Waldegrave, Rt Hon William
Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley	Walden, George
Oppenheim, Phillip	Walker, Bill (N Tayside)
Ottaway, Richard	Waller, Gary
Page, Richard	Ward, John
Paice, James	Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)
Patnick, Sir Irvine	Waterson, Nigel
Patten, Rt Hon John	Watts, John
Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey	Wells, Bowen
Pawsey, James	Wheeler, Rt Hon Sir John
Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth	Whitney, Ray
Pickles, Eric	Whittingdale, John
Porter, David (Waveney)	Widdecombe, Ann
Portillo, Rt Hon Michael	Wiggin, Sir Jerry
Rathbone, Tim	Wilkinson, John
Redwood, Rt Hon John	Willetts, David
Renton, Rt Hon Tim	Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)
Richards, Rod	Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld)
Riddick, Graham	Wolfson, Mark
	Wood, Timothy
Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm	Yeo, Tim
Robathan, Andrew	Young, Rt Hon Sir George
Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn
Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)	Tellers for the Ayes:
Robinson, Mark (Somerton)	Mr. Sydney Chapman and
Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)	Mr. Derek Conway.

NOES
Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)	Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)
Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy	Kennedy, Charles (Ross,C&S)
Austin-Walker, John	Lewis, Terry
Beith, Rt Hon A J	Loyden, Eddie
Benn, Rt Hon Tony	Lynne, Ms Liz
Bennett, Andrew F.	McCrea, The Reverend William
Bermingham, Gerald	Madden, Max
Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)	Maddock, Diana
Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)	Mahon, Alice
Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)	Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)
Campbell-Savours, D N	Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)
Cann, Jamie	Pickthall, Colin
Corbyn, Jeremy	Rooney, Terry
Corston, Jean	Simpson, Alan
Gapes, Mike	Skinner, Dennis
Gerrard, Neil	Taylor, Matthew (Truro)
Gordon, Mildred	Tyler, Paul
Hall, Mike	Wallace, James
Heppell, John
Hughes, Simon (Southwark)	Tellers for the Noes:
Illsley, Eric	Mr. Archy Kirkwood and
Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)	Mr. David Chidgey.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a Second time,and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills.)