Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Stedman-Scott Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

Even today, a parent would normally move to a Collect and Pay arrangement because payments are not being made. We need to have confidence that the Government will deliver the money that is expected. In the latest survey published by the department, only 46% of parents said that they had received the amount of money that the Child Maintenance Service told them that they were going to pay them. Noble Lords can imagine my concern, and the Select Committee will look into this further, but it is my desire to return on Report. There may well be a letter read out by the clerk expressing their concerns about the scope, but I hope I have said enough today to show that I genuinely believe that putting into place legislation to commence it would contribute to the well-being of children directly. Hopefully, we can start to get some of that £700 million back so that those children can have a better start in life, not just through the wonderful hubs and similar but by their parents being able to cover all, or many, of their needs. With that, I beg to move.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend in her endeavours with this amendment. We worked on child maintenance together in the department. It became a real campaign. We were turning every stone to ensure that money that was due to children got to them. I could keep your Lordships here all night with the tricks that people played to avoid paying their maintenance, although I will not. It was truly shameful that people whose relationship had broken down were taking it out on the children, making life very difficult for those who were trying to bring them up.

Somebody would do Direct Pay and pay up, do their own arrangement and everything would be working well; then, when they thought that the Child Maintenance Service was off their back, what would they do? They would stop paying. The enforcement teams would write saying that they had not paid. They would give a raft of pathetic excuses. The enforcement team would then get involved, it would take for ever and there were these vast outstanding sums that should have gone to children. You would go back to Collect and Pay. There would be sums involved that would need to be taken from the amount of money.

I cannot tell your Lordships the lengths to which people will go not to pay their child maintenance. It is shameful and disgraceful. The sooner that these commencement orders are enacted, the quicker we can get money to children and the better their quality of life. I support the amendments in my noble friend’s name. It was quite something to have the two of us on the case of people who did not pay their child maintenance. I would love to be back there doing that now. I hope that the Minister will pull something out of the hat for this.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I too support the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, on this. She was asked whether this affects the child’s well-being, since the money does not go to them. Of course it affects their well-being.

I can tell your Lordships of a family that I know. I know that hard cases make bad law, but theirs is pretty typical. The husband disappeared. There were four children at home. Those children have survived only because of the determination and hard work of the mother. If she was not the strong character that she is, those children’s well-being would be a lot worse than it is now. There is no question that it affects the children’s well-being. I quite agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, that it is a disgrace. If anything can be done to improve the situation, whether it is the noble Baroness’s amendment or something else, I will be right behind it.