I will let the hon. Lady make her own points in due course. We may reach our own judgments on who is right and who is wrong, but we cannot make the agency decide that. Both parents will benefit from an arrangement reached by the CSA, and it is right that it should make that arrangement.
I noticed that there were an awful lot of lawyers on the voting lists in the House of Lords. Lawyers do not say, ““We won't charge you if you're right; we'll only charge you if you're wrong. We won't charge you if you're the aggrieved party; we'll only charge the other party.”” They should accept that similar rules apply to charging by the CSA.
Finally, as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) said, now that child support is an addition to a family's income, rather than it simply being about getting back the taxpayers' money—I am not sure that it was right to make that move—it is sensible that there should be a charge to the beneficiaries. On balance, I think that my hon. Friend the Minister was right to make the modest concession that she did to her lordships, but to stick to the principle; I am glad that she has done so.
Welfare Reform Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Lord Lilley
(Conservative)
in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 1 February 2012.
It occurred during Debate on bills on Welfare Reform Bill.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
539 c933 
Session
2010-12
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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2023-12-15 15:27:55 +0000
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