CHILD SUPPORT AGENCY: QUALITY STANDARD GUARANTEE (Hansard, 29 March 2000)

§ Mr. Pickles
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
366 Again, I do not want to be hurtful, but I think it fair to say that the CSA has not enjoyed the best of records in terms of reliability. In general, Members of Parliament are not specialists—we are jacks of all trades and masters of none—but one issue on which we have firm views is that of the CSA. Every Friday or Saturday, when we hold our constituency surgeries, someone arrives with something from the CSA. People either have a lot of little envelopes that have to be put in order, or, worse, they have put all the material in a big ring binder, and one's heart sinks.
I must add that I think there that has been an improvement. The CSA has made an effort. It has improved enormously in terms of answering the telephone, and—I am speaking for myself here—I have always found its officials to be tireless and diligent. I recognise that they have been operating in difficult circumstances.

§ Mr. Bercow
You are not making a confession.

§ Mr. Pickles
We must speak as we find. Others may have experienced difficulty, but I have always found the CSA's officials to be very polite.

§ Mr. Bercow
My point was simple. Will my hon. Friend confirm that his dealings with the agency have been on behalf of constituents and not, as it were, to plough his own furrow?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. The rules of the House are simple, too: comments from a sedentary position are not helpful.

§ Mr. Pickles
I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham was making a joke. I am sure that the time will come when I will be able to laugh at it. Of course I contacted the CSA on behalf of my constituents. I thank him for making that clear.
The new clause is about empowering the citizen. It will demonstrate to the citizen that something will happen if a mistake is made. There are important reasons for seeking to introduce the measure. It is a question of the Government putting our money where their mouth is. We have heard the Minister suggest that everything will be hunky-dory in the new system because the CSA will not spend its time going through the various forms, or making an assessment: it will be more about collections, so everything will speed up. We are not quite as convinced that we are about to gallop to sunlit uplands.
The Government predict that everything will be fine. We think that, under the new system that will come into operation, unless the Government make significant changes, the CSA will be swamped. The level of applications will increase significantly.
The reason is straightforward. The reforms will dig deep into middle England. We know that that land is much beloved of the Prime Minister. We know that Labour Back Benchers are keen to say, "What about our heartland? You have to stop pandering to middle England and start to look after our heartland." The Bill is not the place to start the great revolutionary march back to the heartlands. It is about filling our surgeries again with a new set of people, who have never dreamt of having any dealings with the CSA. There were enormous protests last time, but, in the words of the great Al Jolson, "You ain't seen nothing yet."
367 If the Government are right, there will be no problem with the new clause because few people will claim, but there will be a move to non-benefit cases. If there is no benefit case, the parties can reach an agreement without interference from the CSA. That is reasonable and sensible. The state will have no particular financial interest, other than the normal and reasonable collection of taxes.
However, once the Bill becomes an Act, 14 months' notice from the parent with care to the non-resident parent is all that is required, and then the CSA can suddenly take over the case. That is why the whole process will be swamped. The CSA will be a weapon in the fight between ex-spouses or ex-partners. We do not find that desirable. That is why people will need the redress that the new clause offers. We also envisage that it will create transfers between spouses by stealth, and that does not seem reasonable.
In other words, the provision will give a bonus to parents with care and enable them to get the maximum settlement. It might be a clean-break settlement as far as the spouses are concerned, but it can never be a clean break in respect of the children. There could be a considerable transfer of financial resources between the spouses, so the provision would give a distinct advantage to the parent with care. For instance, having received transferred resources, the parent with care could then go to the CSA and ask for an assessment. Despite previous transfers of wealth, the non-resident parent would be subject to another assessment. That is why the CSA could represent a big bonus to the parent with care. We never wanted that to happen, and no doubt nor do the Government, but the potential is there.
The system will be swamped as a result of the nature of the proposed changes. They include fixed bands that replace a fairly complex process of assessment. As I have told the Minister on the Floor of the House and in Committee, we support that proposal. However, there will also be a reduction in the number of variations or departures from the scheme. The new clause is necessary because, in many ways, the provision replicates a mistake by the previous Conservative Administration. We recognise that we made a mistake.

§ Mr. Swayne
One of the problems that we examined in Committee was the fear that there would be a growing number of variations as a consequence of the simplicity of the new formula. Would not the addition of new clause 27 provide a powerful incentive for the Government to keep up the pressure by means of a performance measure?

§ Mr. Pickles
My hon. Friend is half right. As he says, the new clause would provide a sensible performance measure and it would be helpful in that respect. However, as my hon. Friend said most powerfully in Committee, the demand for additional variations will not come from within the CSA or from the House; it is more likely to result from public disquiet and unhappiness. In a reasonable world, the new clause might operate as a check on the Government but, as we sought to demonstrate, it would at least provide an early warning of what might go wrong, and that is desirable.
Before my hon. Friend intervened, I was about to don a hair shirt and apologise, so I shall do so now. We made a mistake when we made changes to the CSA. Although we introduced lots of departures and variations— 368 depending on whether one reads the Bill or the Act—and that was sensible, we retained a fairly complex system of assessment. The Government propose a simplified, three-band system of assessment and we support that, but they also intend to reduce the number of variations. That cannot be sensible. It is a mirror image of the mistake that we made. There should be a simplified system of assessment, but a greater number of variations than the Government propose. That would temper the rough justice that the Government would otherwise impose.
I have received a transcript of a talk given by Mr. Nicholas Mostyn QC—

§ Kali Mountford (Colne Valley)
Not him again.

§ Mr. Pickles
I have no doubt that Mr. Mostyn—one of the country's leading family law Queen's counsels—will be most gratified to receive that accolade of "Not him again".

§ The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Mr. Jeff Rooker)
Same old stuff.

§ Mr. Pickles
Mr. Mostyn's speech was given, to Manches and Co., on 7 March 2000, and is therefore quite recent. The Minister therefore cannot say that it is the same old stuff. It is new stuff, and he should pay some attention. [Interruption.] We will come to that in a few moments. However, I do not think that it is appropriate to be doing the knitting by the tumbrels. The Bill is about ensuring that there is maintenance for children, not about redistribution of wealth. I think that the Under-Secretary had better contain herself a little.
5.15 pm
Nicholas Mostyn said: It seems to me if you are going to make the formula more simple you must make your departures wider. You can't make the formula more arbitrary and then cut down the grounds on which you seek departure. That seems to be a very fair assessment.
Labour Members—in their "not him again" mode—will perhaps want to hear something more to their taste. In "Children First: Reforming Child Support", published in October 1996, just a few months before the Government's general election victory, they talked about increasing the grounds on which an appeal can be made to include complaints not only against assessment itself, but against failures in the administrative process that led to it. New clause 27 would achieve precisely that.
The new clause seeks to ensure that, if people are aggrieved, they do not have to wait a month to receive a reply. It would provide a way of ensuring that matters are dealt with. I do not know why the Minister of State should be so unhappy about that. The new clause will make the whole system run better. I do not see why the Government are getting themselves all upset about it.
When we were debating the Bill in Committee, if anything made the Government more likely to accept a proposal, it was the idea that it would improve administrative convenience. The new clause is all about administrative convenience. The new clause will implement Labour's intention, and I commend it to the House.

§ Mr. Field
Reading new clause 27, I thought that I agreed with it. However, after listening to the speech of 369 the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles), I am not sure that I do. However, I should like to add my weight to the Government's position—that it is crucial that we have a much more simplified formula and that we do not grant many exceptions to that simple formula. That is how our tax system runs, and it works well. There is agreement across the country on our tax system. The last thing that we want is more departures from a simplified formula. We are moving towards a formula that people understand, and part of that understanding is that there will be some rough justice.
I hope that, after we have meandered through our debate, the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the clause—which in good nature and good faith could be considered in another place. I suggest that, if the proposal is not voted on today, but is considered in another place, we might consider creating a statutory requirement that maintenance payments should occur only after the errors have been put right. The hon. Gentleman is lucky in that he has only one person staggering in per surgery to complain. In Birkenhead, there are four of five people with shopping bags full of papers from the CSA. There may be cases where an individual has done all in his power to present the proper information, and it is found, much later, that the CSA has made a miscalculation or an error in computing maintenance, and the new maintenance bill, taking into account that error, is backdated to the period when the error was discovered and then presented to my constituent. In those circumstances, it is proper for taxpayers to meet the bill, and not individual constituents.

§ Mr. Andrew George
I welcome the spirit of the new clause. It is reasonable to introduce targets and appropriate compensation, as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) pointed out. Clearly, his surgeries mirror my own. This is the area that has caused the most frustration and difficulty for constituents and Members of Parliament.
I share the right hon. Gentleman's concern about the time period for targets, but there is a question mark over the point at which the target period effectively kicks in; in other words, when it can be agreed that all the evidence required by the CSA has been received, as that is often a cause of debate between the CSA and the client.

§ Mr. Field
I was not arguing that so much. In circumstances where a constituent receives a letter stating that the CSA has discovered that, two years ago, it made a mistake in computing the maintenance, and presenting the constituent with the back payment that he owes, we want the Bill to ensure that our constituent does not pick up the bill and that the CSA does.

§ Mr. George
I was making a point in addition to that point, with which I entirely agree. The backdating claims, and the resulting heavy burden upon many constituents as a result of errors made by the CSA, are pertinent points. These lie alongside the arguments made effectively by the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles). Whether the hon. Gentleman seeks to push the new clause to a vote, or seeks simply to probe the matter, he will find strong support from my party.

§ Mr. Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury)
When I was first elected, a great many people came to my surgeries to 370 complain about the CSA—not only about its mistakes, but about calculations that were not done and about cases dragging on and on. It may be dangerous to say this, but I find that there are fewer cases coming to my surgeries now.
In view of that, I hope that we are not being premature with some of the changes that we are making in the Bill, which undoubtedly creates a system of rough justice. Many changes in the Bill are to be welcomed, but we may come to regret creating such a system.

§ Mr. Swayne
Is my hon. Friend suggesting that the targets set out in the new clause are not necessary because the administrative situation has improved so much? If that is so, is the Bill necessary at all?

§ Mr. Robertson
I am not quite saying that, but my hon. Friend's question leads to an interesting point. I hope that I may test your patience slightly, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by drawing an analogy—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. It occurred to me that the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) was directing the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) more accurately to the substance of the amendment than his own opening remarks suggested. I allowed the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman some licence to put the background to the new clause, but I cannot allow the same licence to other hon. Members.

§ Mr. Robertson
I understand, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am grateful to you for your guidance, and to my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest. West (Mr. Swayne). I had not appreciated how helpful he was being.

§ Mr. Swayne
I am here to help.

§ Mr. Robertson
In view of that advice, I shall turn straight to the detail of new clause 27.

§ Angela Eagle
Very wise.

§ Mr. Robertson
I am sure that it is wise to do so.
I support new clause 27, which would be very useful. It would concentrate the minds of those at the CSA charged with ensuring that money finds its way to parents with care so that children are helped, and with ensuring that people are not charged unfairly. The performance measures that the new clause could be said to be introducing would be very effective.
Target times are all well and good, but we must be aware that in some circumstances it might not be possible to meet such a target. The reasons may be outside the CSA's control—for example, it may not be possible to get the relevant information. When that happens, it would be far better to extend the time a little than to drop the case and allow the costs already incurred to fall to the taxpayer. That is not something that I support.
I am in favour of the new clause, but I think that we must keep something of an open mind about the possibility that the time limit might have to be extended sometimes. My hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) spoke about empowering people, and the new clause would empower people to receive what they are entitled to. In that way the taxpayer would 371 be relieved of the burden. The new clause would also mean that the non-resident parent—the one who does the paying—would receive the justice that he deserves.
All hon. Members know that delays cause many problems, and mean that parents with care and their children have to live without support. In the cases that I have dealt with, many problems have been caused by arrears building up, and the compensation provided for in new clause 27 might well have to be set against those arrears.

§ Mr. Bercow
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I am sure that all hon. Members appreciate his balanced presentation of the case, but does he agree that new clause 27 is desirable, on its own account and because it would establish more widely the principle that compensation should be paid in the event of malfeasance?

§ Mr. Robertson
I entirely agree. In many cases, compensation, had it been paid, would have relieved greatly the suffering of aggrieved parents, regardless of which side of the argument they were on.
Introducing time limits could prevent some of the problems that can be encountered. The threat of violence between the parties was mentioned earlier. I do not suggest that the new clause would remove such threats, but recognising and dealing quickly with them would lessen the risk of violence. There would also be less risk that people would disappear into the community and never having to pay a penny for their children. [Interruption.]

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I hope that we can have a cessation of the chat lines going on between hon. Members on the Government Benches. I am trying to listen to the debate.

§ Mr. Robertson
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sorry that hon. Members do not find my remarks terribly interesting, but they may come to be seen as important.
A time limit would also simplify the system. If people are aware that the CSA means business and that it will sort out a case in X number of weeks, they might be more prepared to provide information, especially when they realise that compensation might be payable.
I understand what the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) said about compensation being paid for by the taxpayer. Would the Government also consider, in certain cases, asking for compensation from a party who has withheld information? I accept that that may be going slightly wide of the new clause, but it might be a way of preventing problems from arising in the first place.

§ Mr. Swayne
My hon. Friends have been eloquent in detailing the problems that Members of Parliament are faced with in their surgeries consequent upon the delays of the Child Support Agency. However, I think that their expectations of the impact of the new clause are rather exaggerated. In many respects, the problems are insoluble. When the CSA is confronted with those problems, it stands between two warring parties who have come to hate one another and who acknowledge no sense of 372 contributory negligence in having chosen one another as partners in the procreation of children. We have to escape from the notion in the new clause that there should be a measure of customer satisfaction with the Child Support Agency. In many respects, such expectations cannot be met.

§ Mr. Pickles
I am not sure that my hon. Friend is entirely right. The new clause offers an early warning system that things are not going right at the Child Support Agency. One of the earliest signs that the agency is getting swamped and things are going wrong is the length of time that staff take to reply to letters or make assessments.

§ Mr. Swayne
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I began my remarks by saying what I think that the new clause would not achieve, despite some people's expectations. I now wish to deal with what the new clause would achieve, which my hon. Friend has drawn to our attention. Undoubtedly, many of the problems that compound the irritation and frustration of our constituents arise purely out of an administrative rather than a social problem. Part of that has undoubtedly been the lack of resources that have been made available to the agency. The Parliamentary Commissioner drew attention to that in reports to the House.
It must be acknowledged that there has been a huge improvement in the agency's performance, measured by the number of cases that have been referred to the Parliamentary Commissioner, which is sharply down, and the number of cases referred to Members of Parliament. Nevertheless, one of the principal purposes of the Bill, as we are constantly told, is to streamline the administrative process because the existing process is far too cumbersome. I see that the Minister nods her head. Given that one of the Bill's principal purposes is to achieve that administrative streamlining and, as a consequence, deliver a measure of justice that the existing system simply cannot deliver, it seems appropriate to have some means of measuring the effectiveness of that administrative improvement. The new clause provides precisely that mechanism.
It is appropriate that we should demand such provisions, because time after time in Committee, when we attempted to ameliorate what Ministers correctly referred to as some of the rough justice of the Bill, we were told that, although our amendments were desirable in themselves, they could not be accepted because they undermined the overriding requirement to deliver administrative efficiency. If the purpose of the Bill is to do that, surely the pay-off must be the provisions in new clause 27.
The Bill will, of course, deliver a much simpler system, but it will be a much rougher form of justice. As a consequence, it is proper to provide our constituents with a form of redress if the system continues to fall down and if its administrative procedures do not match up to expectations. That would provide an administrative incentive to the Department and to Ministers to ensure that the CSA is properly resourced and capable of delivering the administrative solution for which the Bill was designed.

§ Mr. Pickles
The logical extension of my hon. Friend's argument is a point that I did not pursue. The provision 373 would offer Ministers, or those in control of the CSA, a week-by-week view—an early warning that things might go wrong; they would not have to wait months to find out through an appeal. People would have begun to receive money so everyone would already know that something had gone wrong.

§ Mr. Swayne
That is correct. That mechanism must be built into the system because it is so manifestly lacking under the existing arrangements which the Bill attempts to remedy. In effect, the provision is a form of management information. To include that is not only correct, but would introduce an element of justice and redress that the Bill does not contain. Much of the Bill trades justice and fairness for administrative convenience—not for the benefit of the Department but for that of the taxpayer and, indeed, the customers of the CSA, for whom the present system is unfair and unjust because it is so complex.

§ Mr. Bercow
My hon. Friend will have observed that subsection (2) of the new clause states that the "level of compensation payable" is to be set out in regulations consequent on the clause. Is it my hon. Friend's understanding that the levels—I think the plural is intended, or, if not, it would be appropriate—of compensation should be specified in the regulations, and that they should not be subject to the personal discretion or the administrative fiat of CSA staff?

§ Mr. Swayne
That is true. The principle of natural justice should apply to those regulations. Customers should be compensated for the tort—the wrong—that they have suffered; the compensation should right the injustice. I would expect that to be set out in the regulations. If that element of natural justice is not included, the Bill will not be compliant with the European convention on human rights. Presumably, Ministers have taken advice and reflected on that matter.

§ Mr. Bercow
That would never do.

§ Mr. Swayne
My hon. Friend is unfair. In Committee, we covered such matters exhaustively and Ministers provided some satisfaction on them.
I share entirely the Ministers' objective, but the new clause is desirable not only on the ground of natural justice but because it would provide what I have called the pay-off for some of the compromises on fairness that we have made during proceedings on the Bill. We have sacrificed fairness for administrative streamlining, and it is therefore appropriate to insert this measure of redress.

§ Angela Eagle
We need to bear in mind in our deliberations the fact that the Bill will undoubtedly deliver a simpler and more effective system of child support, and because of it, more than 1 million children will gain. We are all in favour of targets. The only thing that divides the Government and the Opposition in this debate is where and how they should be set and in what context.
I thank Opposition Members who have observed that there have been some improvements in the Child Support Agency. It is true that there have been huge improvements in its attempts to deliver a very difficult administrative 374 system. The hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) mentioned the telephone answering service. I can tell the House that, in 1996, only 1 per cent. of calls were answered promptly—

§ Mr. Kevin Hughes (Doncaster, North)
If at all.

§ Angela Eagle
My hon. Friend is right. That figure is now up to 70 per cent. Although all hon. Members have noticed some significant improvements, we know that there is a great deal more to do. Nobody is in favour of delays and arrears. We are all too familiar from our constituency postbags with the delays and poor service that the CSA, struggling with its current formula, can provide. The child support scheme has failed parents and children alike, and that is why we are revisiting the subject to try to get it right. Clearly, given our experience, it is our duty to bear administrative simplicity in mind when redesigning the system. The radical simplification of the way in which child support liability is assessed, by replacing the complex assessment formula with a straightforward one, will help a great deal.
The new clause is unnecessary. In the reformed child support scheme, we expect the agency to make maintenance calculations within days and to get maintenance flowing in an average of four to six weeks rather than up to six months, as now. Clearly, by the time six months have elapsed, non-resident parents face difficulties having accrued arrears through no fault of their own.

§ Mr. Pickles
Would it be fair to say that the hon. Lady is rejecting the new clause as unnecessary because delays will not occur under the new system?

§ Angela Eagle
If the hon. Gentleman is patient, I shall come on to explain why the new clause is unnecessary. I am disagreeing not with the requirement for targets but with the way in which the new clause would put them into effect and with some of the perverse effects that that would have. Indeed, the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) pointed one out: if the agency had to ensure that all—that is the word used in the new clause—payments were made within a set time, regardless of how difficult a case might be, that might create a perverse incentive not to pursue some cases. Such cases would be bound not to fall within the target. The hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. George) mentioned some of the difficulties and sensitivities of setting targets fairly.
We are looking at a target of four to six weeks rather than six months in which to get maintenance flowing. The faster turnround of cases will get it flowing more quickly and reliably, and that is the aim underpinning the changes. The new clause would mean that the agency would be legally bound to deal with all cases referred to it in a set target time, regardless of whether the parents were co-operating, of why the delay had occurred and of the normal peaks and troughs in the number of separated parents applying for maintenance.
The Secretary of State will, as now, set the CSA a range of targets each year, including those relating to clearance times. However, it is unrealistic and inappropriate to set such targets in legislation. That is not done in any other area, and legislation is a particularly inflexible way of setting targets.
375 5.45 pm
If the wording of the new clause is taken literally, a target embracing the clearance of "all" cases would have to be set at the level of the most difficult case if it were to be remotely realistic. A more demanding target would lead the agency to devote a disproportionate level of its resources to clearing such cases, substantially worsening the position for those who would otherwise expect quick and effective decisions. That would be counterproductive.
The chief executive of the CSA is rightly accountable to Parliament for the performance of her agency and details of its performance against each of its targets are published in its annual report. The performance of the agency is also subject to the scrutiny of the Public Accounts Committee and the Select Committee on Social Security. Requiring the CSA to meet what might be inflexible clearance-time targets that were set in isolation from other targets, such as those relating to accuracy, would simply not be sensible.
The new clause would also require the agency to pay compensation to parents where the agency failed to meet its statutory clearance targets regardless of the cause of the delay. As hon. Members will be aware, the Department of Social Security, in common with other Departments, has a discretionary compensation scheme, which provides financial redress to anyone who has suffered financial loss, harm or suffering as a result of poor administration.

§ Mr. Pickles
I think that the Minister has misread the terms of the new clause. It says: The Secretary of State shall, by regulations, set a target time within which the Child Support Agency shall deal with all cases referred to it. That means all the various categories. The Secretary of State will set the targets for the various categories and it is a perverse reading of the true meaning of the new clause to suggest that a target must be set for every single case. The new clause would mean that targets would be set for the various categories. If that is what it means, all the Minister's objections to it will be swept aside.

§ Angela Eagle
The hon. Gentleman did not deal in detail with that aspect of the new clause when he moved it. However, it refers to "all cases". There is no distance between us on the need for the CSA to have targets. Those targets should be published and should be made available. The CSA should then prove to the rest of us—its accountability is well set out—that it is capable of meeting those targets. I do not think that the new clause would assist that process, and we do not want the targets to be set in legislation. They are normally set by a Secretary of State and reported on in annual reports, but they certainly do not appear in secondary legislation. If they did, that would make them inflexible.
Compensation is already paid and, last year, it amounted to more than £4.5 million. There is nothing between us on the setting of targets and I am not saying that we will not set very rigorous targets for the CSA. However, we do not want to set them in legislation; we want them to be set in the normal way. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the CSA will be accountable.

§ Mr. Pickles
I am most grateful to the Minister. She says that there is consensus on the setting of targets, and she is absolutely right about that. Everyone agrees that the targets should be reasonable. We do not want to place the CSA and even Ministers in a difficult position. We argue that realistic targets should be set.
There is, however, a difference of opinion between us. She says that if targets are not met for individuals, nothing will happen. We argue that people should be entitled to compensation, but when I said that nothing would happen, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) shook his head. I am not sure what would happen. Perhaps a report would be written, perhaps the CSA would have to appear before a Select Committee and receive a grilling or perhaps it would be the subject of an audit from the Public Accounts Committee. However, such processes are meaningless to ordinary members of the public, because they are blissfully unaware of them.
We have debated this issue before and we must remember that the individuals involved are ordinary folk who want to achieve justice from the system. They are not concerned whether an official whom they consider to be highly paid appears before a Select Committee and receives a bit of a grilling from even more highly paid politicians. They are thinking, "I've been waiting a month and nothing has happened. Why not? I haven't received any compensation or an apology. I've received nothing."

§ Mr. Swayne
The Minister, in putting her case, set out what targets she will seek to achieve for the length of time taken to process an application. Does my hon. Friend consider those targets reasonable, as the Minister does, or does he have alternatives?

§ Mr. Pickles
Well, we do not know what targets the Minister will set. We have had a vague promise that targets will be set.

§ Angela Eagle
We shall publish the targets. Clearly, they will not be a state secret. Targets for the CSA and all agencies within the Department of Social Security are published, so I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the process will be open.

§ Mr. Pickles
I am sure that receiving the targets will not be a case of meeting at the crossroads at midnight. I am sure that they will be published.

§ Mr. Swayne
Given that the targets will be published and that the Minister complained that it would be inappropriate to set targets in the Bill, there can be no objection to the new clause because it does not require targets to be included in the Bill. It merely requires the Secretary of State to set targets.

§ Angela Eagle
In regulations.

§ Mr. Swayne
Indeed, in regulations. Given that the Minister will set such targets—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. If the hon. Gentleman is seeking to make an intervention on his hon. Friend, he needs to disguise it better than that.

§ Mr. Pickles
In so far as I understand my hon. Friend's point, I agree with him. The Minister was told by those 377 briefing her on the new clause, "This will be a piece of cake because the Tories have tied themselves in knots. We do not want to set the targets in legislation because that is wholly unreasonable. Look, they're using the word 'all', so you'll have no problem dismissing the new clause." Of course, problems have started to occur. We have had distinguished contributions from the Liberal Democrats and, of course, my hon. Friends, saying that the new clause is sensible. My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) is absolutely square on.
We must look at the new clause. It is nice to debate legislation in this place but it is better to look at what we are debating. The new clause says: The Secretary of State shall, by regulations, set a target time within which—

§ Mr. Rooker
The hon. Gentleman has already read out the new clause.

§ Mr. Pickles
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, but it is clear that he was not listening, so I shall continue. The new clause says: The Secretary of State shall, by regulations, set a target time within which the Child Support Agency shall deal with all cases referred to it. We want the Secretary of State to do precisely that.
That does not mean to say that every case would have the same target. I do not suppose that the Under-Secretary thought that every CSA case would have an identical target. That is certainly not what she just said. She started to take hon. Members into her confidence and said that the targets will be published and the process will be open.
The new clause seeks only to ensure that the targets set by the Secretary of State will have a consequence. Subsection (2) would empower the Secretary of State to set the level of compensation to be paid if those targets were not met. That is necessary for two reasons. First, as I have already said, we want to ensure that the people waiting on the telephone and sending letters do not think that their words have gone into a great black hole.

§ Mr. Swayne
I fear that in his attempt to be reasonable and to persuade the Government to adopt the new clause, my hon. Friend is handing rather too much power to Ministers because the regulations, compensation and targets will be entirely at their discretion. Could he assist the House by indicating what would be reasonable compensation and what would be a reasonable target?

§ Mr. Pickles
I have no idea whether my hon. Friend is a fly fisherman or whether you are, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but when one casts the lure on the water, it is important that it is attractive enough to make the Government snap. My hon. Friend must recognise from his time in the House—which is daily becoming more distinguished—that the Government resist including precise figures in primary legislation because they want more power.
To tempt the Government to accept the new clause, I am offering them considerable power. That is a straightforward strategy. I may be criticised for making it easy on the Government and for making the system work, 378 but we decided that from day 1 we would deal with the Government on the basis of trying to improve the Bill, and that is why the new clause has been made so tempting.

§ Mr. Bercow
Does my hon. Friend agree that on the subject of compensation payments the Minister gave us a passable imitation of Dr. Pangloss in suggesting that the present arrangements are entirely satisfactory? Does he recall that she referred to the overall sum available for compensation? Does he think that it is more important to establish that the individual amounts payable in given circumstances are appropriate than to brag holistically about the overall level, because that gives the impression that, Scrooge-like, she is concerned with the totality rather than the cause of individual justice?

§ Mr. Pickles
I understand my hon. Friend's suggestion. The Minister said that the new clause is not entirely alien to the Government's measures; a compensation scheme exists and the new clause is perhaps a natural add-on to that scheme. In a way the Minister is arguing against herself by not accepting the new clause.
As I said, the first reason why subsection (2) is necessary is to ensure that the public understand that a compensation scheme exists. The second reason relates to administrative convenience. The new clause would enable us to find out pretty soon if things are going wrong. We could find out in various ways. We could set up a complex system, perhaps involving computer software and outside consultants who could monitor customer satisfaction, conduct opinion polls and set up a focus group of people who had dealt with the CSA.
I suspect that all those methods would be very effective, but subsection (2) offers a cheap and cheerful alternative. Compensation will be paid on the basis of a failure to comply with pre-set Government targets, so we would find out instantly if things went wrong. Sensible CSA managers would be monitoring the effect of the new clause almost weekly. I imagine that they might well have a graph in their office showing the amount of compensation being paid. If they suddenly found that the curve was starting to change and the graph was becoming almost vertical, they would ask themselves what was happening. That would tell us that something has gone wrong in the system; it would give us an early warning—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. May I give the hon. Gentleman an early warning? I feel that he is beginning to repeat himself.

§ Mr. Pickles
I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As I am sure that you realise, I am genuinely attempting to improve the Bill and I have now made my second point.
The Government suggest that the new clause, if it is interpreted in a certain way, might have a perverse effect, because of the words "all cases". I recall the Under-Secretary saying that there might be a possibility of officials deciding not to pursue certain cases because they would take too long. The hon. Lady understands that we interpret the words "all cases" differently, but—[Interruption.] The Minister of State appears to want me to go on even longer, even though I have already received a warning from the Deputy Speaker. I was about to become accommodating, so the right hon. Gentleman should not provoke me.
379 Because of the Under-Secretary's comments and because our proposal appears to have attracted cross-party support, I am hopeful that she will have a little think about it.

§ Mr. Bercow
Is not the problem with compensation that the process of pursuing it is often difficult, lengthy and uncertain, notwithstanding the Under-Secretary's comments about the overall compensation payable? Therefore, is not the merit of the specificity of the new clause that it will give CSA staff an incentive to good performance that the Bill does not provide?

§ Mr. Pickles
My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

§ Angela Eagle
The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) has it slightly wrong: £4.5 million is not the amount of compensation that is available, sitting in a pot, waiting to be claimed, but is the amount of compensation that was paid out last year.

§ Mr. Pickles
I think that we understood that.
Because the use of the phrase "all cases" might result in the new clause having a perverse effect, because there is a high degree of consensus on the clause, and because I suspect that the matter will be pursued in another place, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.