Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

I did get some support, and I was very grateful for it at the time. I am sorry that this is one of the issues on which the Government have not seen sense. Having said that, I am pleased to see some of the amendments on the Lords amendment paper, and that the combined arguments of the Opposition in Committee carried some weight and had results at later stages; some of the issues that we addressed have been returned to. On clause 2, I am pleased that the Government have gone a considerable way towards addressing the concerns raised regarding the status of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, but I share many of the concerns already expressed on that point, particularly regarding the three-year period. I have considerable experience of dealing with the Child Support Agency, both as a solicitor and latterly as a Member of Parliament. I have always found the staff to be as helpful as they can be but, over the years, they have put up with horrendous problems with the computer system and, frankly, with some incompetent management. That is reflected in many ways, including in the morale of staff in many offices, and in staff turnover. I remember visiting one centre where there was very high staff turnover—I cannot remember the exact figure—because of the pressure that staff were under, both in the job and because of the reaction of the public with whom they had to deal. The public had to deal only with the person on the coal face, and not with the computer system or the management behind the organisation. I am pleased that the Government have accepted that the staff should remain civil servants. I note what the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) says about making changes in a Committee Room upstairs, but he cannot have been subject to the campaign waged by the unions on the position of their members in the CSA. I am sure that debate on such a subject would not slip past unnoticed in a Committee Room upstairs without mass lobbying of the House by members of the unions, who are deeply concerned about the status of their members in the CSA. They perhaps saw the proposal as a bridgehead showing things to come. They, and many other organisations, will be watching closely any changes that are proposed.