Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

This group of amendments relates to the assessment and collection of child maintenance, and the commission's responsibilities in dealing with concerns raised about the parent with care's ability to obtain the right level of child maintenance. Lords amendment No. 6 places a duty on the commission to make investigations into any application from the parent with care for a variation to the maintenance assessment, if it is clear that further evidence would help the commission to decide whether a variation should be made. Currently, few applications for variations from parents with care are successful. Often, that is because the parent with care simply does not have the information necessary to show the agency why the variation should be made. The amendment requires the commission to consider further information or evidence that is or could be available to it, including by reference to information that it is already in possession of, where it appears to the commission that to do so may affect its decision in respect of the variation. That will become particularly relevant once the data-sharing provisions with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs are in place, as the commission may well have better access to information that would support the variation than the parent with care. The commission will be able to conduct investigations using information already held, for example by HMRC, or to seek fresh information from other sources, such as accountants, employers or credit reference agencies. This adjustment to policy was made in response to representations from groups representing parents with care, who find the current system inflexible and open to manipulation by unscrupulous non-resident parents who seek to conceal their real income from both the parent with care and the Child Support Agency. A further amendment enables the disclosure to the commission of information provided in the context of family proceedings in court that is likely to be relevant to the commission's child maintenance functions. Currently, such disclosure brings with it a risk of contempt of court. That risk is removed by the amendment. This proposal was welcomed on both sides during the Committee stage in another place. To give a practical example of how it can help, there are cases—for example, in ancillary relief proceedings on divorce cases—where a non-resident parent discloses information on court documents about his or her income, or where the court makes a finding regarding the non-resident parent's financial circumstances, property or assets that were not previously known. Currently, that information cannot be passed to the Child Support Agency, which has to seek it again from scratch. The commission, by contrast, will be able to receive and use that information without risk of contempt of court. The final amendment is a drafting correction and ensures that the commission has access to information on contributions held by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. That is to ensure consistency with arrangements already in place for the Child Support Agency. I commend the amendments to the House.