Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill

We, too, welcome the amendments. The Minister will recall that in Committee a major concern of ours was that the creation of CMEC should not be used as an opportunity to forget about or write off large historic debts. I therefore welcome the effect of the amendments, which will give the parent with care the final say in whether the debt is written off, and ensure that they must agree to any selling on of that debt,. However, I would like to question the Minister about how that will operate. He and I, having dealt with several constituency cases, can imagine circumstances in which there is a long-outstanding debt of a large sum of money, such as the one mentioned by the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), the children involved have grown up, and a letter arrives from CMEC with an offer. Will the Minister tell me what sort of safeguards will be put in place to ensure that the parent with care can seek advice, if they are concerned about the proposal? Will the full details of any settlement be explained to them? If they are owed £40,000, an offer of £20,000 may be acceptable, but will CMEC offer a full assessment of why that amount should be accepted? I would not want a situation to arise in which a letter drops through the letterbox asking for written permission without the possibility of further discussion, face-to-face consultation or further advice before such an offer is made. As we have said, we are talking about huge sums of money—more than £1.5 billion. That is a lot of money, and throughout their childhood an awful lot of children have missed the opportunity for that money to benefit them. Will the Minister assure us that there will not be an automatic write-off or selling on of debt? There must be safeguards in place to ensure that the parent with care, and perhaps even the child, who may have reached adulthood, has a say and can have a proper discussion about what an agreement might mean to them. That is important if we are to take forward the provisions, which I welcome.