Child Maintenance Services Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Work and Pensions
Derek Twigg
Main Page: Derek Twigg (Labour - Halton)Department Debates - View all Derek Twigg's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Jamie Stone
I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. I think I can safely speak for all members of the APPG in saying that we would endorse what has just been said and we would gladly look at her Bill. One of the most encouraging aspects of the work—early as it is—of this new APPG is the cross-party support that there is for it. Regardless of political colour, there is a recognition that there is something very wrong and I am sure that we can improve that.
I will re-emphasise my opening point that currently the CMS is not working for anybody. In my own office, the bulk of cases come from constituents who are paying parents and who are being unfairly treated by the CMS. We have found that it is often the case for parents who have shared care that one parent has the child for more days than the other and is entitled to various child benefits but then asks for maintenance on top of that, despite the other parent caring for the child for two to three days a week without receiving any support from the Government. So there are different ways of looking at this issue.
In my office, we have also seen cases where parents have been making their payments properly and on time, but they have had those payments treated as being “voluntary”, and so they are not counted towards assessed payments.
It is clear that we need a fundamental overhaul of the way that the CMS works, so that it better protects receiving parents from economic abuse and the threat of poverty, and so that paying parents are not being unnecessarily chased by the CMS for payments they do not owe. This would require a proper and thorough understanding of domestic and economic abuse, a fundamental link between the DWP and HMRC, and an urgent review of the internal administrative efficiency of the CMS.
In closing, I will simply say that I make these remarks in this place in all sincerity and I hope that we can move forward on a cross-party basis, with help from His Majesty’s Government, to tackle this issue, which cuts deeply into many people’s lives and for the worse.
Derek Twigg (in the Chair)
May I just remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called to speak in this debate?