§ Mr. Abseasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that the maximum order that can be obtained by an unmarried mother in a court against the father of her child is 50s. per week, that any payment awarded by the court is taxed as unearned income and that there is public concern prompted by a recent case where a highly paid entertainer could only be compelled to pay 50s. a week for his own child; and what are the results of the consideration he has been giving to amending the law to enable larger amounts to be ordered in affiliation proceedings.
§ Mr. George ThomasMy right hon. Friend has accepted a recommendation made by the Law Commission in its First Programme that a committee should be set up to examine the financial limits prescribed by Statute for orders which may be made in magistrates' courts for the maintenance of spouses and children, and the appropriate machinery for adjusting such limits to changing circumstances.
§ Mr. Abseasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he 267W will seek to amend the law to enable affiliation orders to be made requiring the payment of a sum sufficient to give the child the standard of life appropriate to the status in life a son or daughter of that lather would normally have, such a sum to be fixed on the same basis as that afforded to an entirely innocent wife in a divorce case; and whether he will further seek to amend the law to enable magistrates, in fixing a sum, to take into account the expenses or losses incurred by a mother having to stay at home if the child is to have personal maternal care.
§ Mr. George ThomasMy right hon. Friend is not satisfied that it would be right to fetter the discretion of magistrates to take into account all factors that seem relevant to them in fixing the amount to be paid within the statutory limit.
§ Mr. Abseasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that if a grandmother or aunt takes in an illegitimately-born child whose mother has died or disappeared, no affiliation order can be made on account of the child to benefit directly either the child himself or the relative; and whether he will seek to amend the law so that the Continental practice of attaching a right of payment to the child himself, and not only to the mother, comes into existence.
§ Mr. George ThomasWhere an affiliation order has already been made Section 5(4) of the Affiliation Proceedings Act, 1957, gives the court power to appoint some person other than the mother to have the custody of the child if the mother has died, or is of unsound mind, or is in prison, and the person appointed guardian is entitled to enforce the order. If no order has been made it is difficult to see how the court could obtain satisfactory evidence to enable it to make an order in the absence of the mother. The vesting of the right to maintenance in the child would not overcome this difficulty.