Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

This group of amendments relates to the powers available to the commission to tackle non-resident parents who continually fail to meet their financial responsibilities to their children. A particularly important suite of measures in the Bill allows the commission to target non-payers directly through their bank accounts, using deduction orders. The powers were discussed at some length in Committee, and I agreed then with hon. Members on both sides of the House that it would be desirable to make the commission's options in this respect as wide as possible. The Bill as we debated it in Committee limited the powers to the use of periodic and lump sum deductions from personal current accounts, and to lump sum deductions from personal savings accounts. It therefore excluded deductions from business accounts, and from joint personal accounts. The amendments widen the primary provisions so that no type of account will be excluded on the face of the Bill. The details of accounts which will be excluded, if necessary, will be set out in regulations. That sends the right message to those thinking about trying to evade their responsibilities, and allows the powers to be exercised flexibly by the commission in the years ahead by making proposals to Ministers on the content of regulations. It also gives us the necessary flexibility to consult and co-operate with the financial services industry, to ensure that we take due account of its concerns about, for example, cost of administration, and to allow us to keep abreast of changes in the provision of financial services. Regulations under these powers will be subject to the affirmative procedure. The Bill has also been amended to allow the commission to apply for a freezing order in relation to property or assets held by a non-resident parent where it becomes apparent that he or she is about to dissipate those assets. We have also added an additional power to allow the commission to make an application to the court to set aside a disposition made by a non-resident parent where it was made with the intention of defeating a claim for child maintenance. These are powers that were supported and, in some cases, proposed by Opposition Members, and I am pleased that there is so much common ground between us on the need to provide the commission with the powers necessary to bear down on non-resident parents who are not meeting their obligations. Furthermore, following concerns raised about the recovery of historic debt, the Bill has been amended to ensure that all new and existing powers to collect child maintenance can potentially be used on debt of any age. We have already amended regulations so that there is no longer a six-year time limitation for an application for a liability order on debt that accrued on or after 13 July 2000. However, there is some debt which had already reached six years of age before then and the amendment ensures that when the new administrative liability order comes into force, the same enforcement mechanisms can be used on all debt regardless of age. Finally, the Bill will be amended to provide for a court-based mechanism for the removal of travel authorisation—passports and, in due course, the equivalent provision in identity cards—from non-resident parents who wilfully neglect or culpably refuse to pay their child maintenance. It is an equivalent procedure to that which applies already for driving licences. As my colleague Lord McKenzie of Luton pointed out when the amendment was tabled on Report in the other place, we proposed it in response to legitimate questions from the Select Committee on the Constitution of that House concerning the importance to the individual of holding a passport and the fact that decisions to withhold such documents are usually made by judicial determination. The amendment means that the commission will have to apply to the court for an order to disqualify the non-resident parent from holding or obtaining travel authorisation, rather than being able to take the action administratively. However, I hope that we can all continue to reflect on which decisions need to be made by the courts and which could be made more effectively by administrative action. To that end, we reserve the right to come back to the House to reconsider which decisions should fall within the commission's remit. However, this arrangement is appropriate for this Bill. I hope that when we return to the matter, Opposition Members will approach it in the same spirit of consensus that we have seen with other tough enforcement measures, such as the powers to enter bank accounts that I described. The amendments are in many cases a welcome strengthening of the powers that we originally proposed for the commission, and many of them pick up suggestions from Opposition Members. I commend them to the House.