Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

How will the data-matching proposed in Lords amendments Nos. 118 and 119 take place? Will it be possible to match records on the Inland Revenue and national insurance computers electronically with the commission's records on a ““class”” basis? Would the records of a class of absent parents who had not been making payments be run against the records on the national insurance recording computer? How will this power be used? Have any contracts yet been let to computer companies or similar organisations? What will be the scale of the matching, in terms of numbers? Does the Minister envisage thousands of cases being matched each year, or will only a small number of individual cases be involved? Will he tell us a little more about the Government's thinking? What has been agreed with the Revenue, and what contracts are in prospect?