Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

I, too, welcome the amendments. I am sure the Minister recalls that in Committee we also raised concerns about ensuring that all income is taken account of when an assessment is being made, and we provided examples of cases. The hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) talked in particular about the construction industry and examples involving self-employed people in which it was quite clear that not all the information was being made available to the CSA. Therefore, the parent with care was not getting their full entitlement. Any steps that the Minister can take to ensure that when further information is made available it is not just accepted but properly investigated will be pertinent to the success of CMEC. The hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire made some relevant points about the operation of the CSA and the arrangement with HMRC. In Committee, we strongly laboured the point about the lack of consistency between the two Government agencies in ensuring that such information is made available. The Minister assured us that that would take place. I hope that the amendment and the new arrangements achieve proper follow-through on that. He knows as well as I do the figures on the amounts of money that are not being collected and the effect that that has on child poverty. It is clearly important to all of us in the House that we have proper arrangements in place, so I welcome the amendment, which recognises that a parent with care can put forward more information and that the commission will properly investigate it. As the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire said, we need assurances on how the gateway between departments is working, because clearly it is not working at the moment and there is no point putting new legislation in place if we are not going to get it working. On amendment No. 90, I again welcome the way that the proposals are going with regard to disclosure of information through the family courts. As has been said, it is important that the family courts and the commission work closely together. Those are often difficult times for families, particularly the parent with care. Emotions are running high and lots of things are going on, so it is clearly important that the commission has access to information that will be revealed during any divorce settlement and that could materially affect the assessment that CMEC makes. I want to question the Minister further on a matter that my noble Friend Lord Kirkwood raised in the other place. It relates to amendment No. 90, proposed new section 49AA(2)(c) and the use of the word ““reasonably””. The amendment says:"““This section applies if…the party reasonably considers that the information is relevant to the exercise of the Commission's functions relating to child support in relation to the child.””" If the commission was seeking information from the court, I could understand that it ought to act ““reasonably”” and not go on a wild goose chase, but we are talking about ““the party””—that is, the person who may well want the commission to look at information revealed during family court proceedings. I do not want a clause in the Bill being used as a loophole for the parent without care to get out of supplying information that could lead to a better settlement being provided for the parent with care. I would have thought that the parent with care, acting as the guardian of the child, would clearly be acting reasonably because they would want to put before the commission all information that would enable them to get a proper settlement, which would enable them to bring up the child properly. Conversely, the parent without care may not want to act reasonably, because he or she will not want to provide such information. While the word ““reasonably”” may itself sound reasonable, it rings alarm bells for me. I can imagine the parent without care going to the court and saying, ““It is unreasonable for that information to be provided.”” It should be for the commission to decide what is reasonable. The Bill states what information it can and cannot seek. We are not talking about debt collections, or information that could allow third parties to gain access to people's financial affairs. I agree with my noble Friend that the amendment is unnecessary, and sets alarm bells ringing in relation to why it is there in the first place. I hope that the Minister can clarify the issue, because I do not think that it was dealt with satisfactorily in the other place.