Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

My Lords, I was rather bemused by the amendment and I confess to remaining somewhat in that state. As set down, the amendments in this group would replace nearly all references to ““paragraph”” within Schedule 6 with ““Schedule””. Each paragraph within Schedule 6 enables information held by the specific government department to be supplied to the commission for the purpose of functions relating to child support and enables the commission to supply information that it holds in relation to child support to be supplied to those government departments for the purpose of their specified functions. That is the purpose of the gateway. Changing the references from ““paragraph”” to ““Schedule”” takes away the limitations and makes all types of data referred to in the schedule available to all the parties mentioned within the schedule. That cannot possibly be right. The importance of data security has previously been raised and it is crucial that the legislation for the sharing of data is watertight and not open to misinterpretation. We believe that the amendments would reduce the clarity of the schedule and would compromise the provisions in place for data security. I take this opportunity to assure noble Lords that the security of data continues to be of paramount importance. We will ensure that security through a number of methods. Safeguards will be built in to ensure that inappropriate or excessive access to information is not available to commission staff and that data access is controlled. Any person found inappropriately to disclose information obtained by working for or on behalf of the commission will be committing a criminal offence. That will enforce data security, which will be achieved through the extension of Section 50 of the Child Support Act 1991. It is absolutely fundamental to the new system that HMRC data are used. Basing the assessment on gross income data as provided by HMRC is one of the key planks of the reform because it will enable assessments to be made without reference, in most cases, to non-resident parents. That is part of the process that has caused the CSA to fail in large measure in the past. The purpose of the gateways is to enable that information to be provided. I am not aware of the response that the noble Lord’s colleague received. However, he asked me about secondees from HMRC to what is currently the CSA but in future will presumably be the commission. I am not familiar with the individual work plans of each office or the career plans for each individual but I can well see that having HMRC individuals available to the commission as part of the operation could be helpful. That would certainly be the case in the minority, and possibly 10 per cent, of cases where HMRC gross data will not be available—for example, in relation to the self-employed—and where having people with HMRC experience could be quite useful. I do not know whether that is how they are being deployed; perhaps I had better look more specifically at the information that the noble Lord has requested, which I do not have available at the moment. However, the fundamental point is that the gateways should be controlled to ensure that the commission gets the information that it needs. The HMRC link is critical to ensuring that future assessments are timely and accurate. I hope that that has satisfied the noble Lord—at least, in part. I cannot readily tell him what each individual secondee from HMRC or anywhere else might be doing but I shall see whether I can find out and will write to him if that is of help.