Press Release

 

  

Child Maintenance Bill is Punitive, Draconian, and Contradictory, says Families Need Fathers

 

  

• The Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill will have its second reading in the House of Commons on 4th July.

   

 

• Families Need Fathers believes the Bill needs Radical Reform.

   

  
  

 

 

The Child Maintenance And Other Payments Bill is due to have its Second Reading in the House of Commons on 4 July.

 

Jon Davies, Chief Executive of the charity Families Need Fathers, said:

 

“This Bill needs radical reform. Encouragement is theoretically given to voluntary agreements, yet the headlines are all about coercion. What we need is a Bill that encourages compliance by developing cooperation over parenting and respecting the needs of children in the round.

 

The Bill is punitive, draconian and contradictory: punitive because it contains at least nine ways of punishing parents who get into trouble with C-MEC, the successor to the Child Support Agency; draconian because taken together these punishments are entirely disproportionate in relation to the objective of getting parents to pay for their children’s upbringing, an objective we support; contradictory because, for example, C-MEC has to ask a court permission to confiscate someone’s driving license but not their passport. Yet both can destroy livelihoods and the ability to pay for one’s child.”

 

The Bill will set up a new Commission, to replace the CSA. According to the Bill, its powers will include:

 

(i)                 C-MEC can apply to a court to send someone to prison (Clause 27).

(ii)               C-MEC can apply to a court to confiscate someone’s driving license (Clause 28).

(iii)             C-MEC can disqualify someone from holding or obtaining travel authorisation (i.e. a passport or ID card), without having to ask a Court for permission (Clause 25).

(iv)              C-MEC can apply to the Court for a Curfew Order, confining someone to ‘a place so specified’ for up to 12 hours a day. This place can be anywhere in either England and Wales or Scotland, depending on whether C-MEC is approaching an English or Welsh magistrate or a Scottish sheriff.

(v)                Deduction of Earnings Orders, including fines for non-compliance (Clause 19).

(vi)              Lump Sum Deduction Orders, to collect arrears (Clause 22).

(vii)            Power to make administrative liability orders (Clause 23).

(viii)          Power to search someone for money owed (Clause 25).

(ix)              Power to recover C-MEC’s costs of doing (iii) (Clause 25).

 

The Bill also says that one of C-MEC’s objectives will be to encourage parents to reach private arrangements. FNF supports this objective, not least because it helps keep parents and their children away from our often divisive legal system. Yet the Bill gives no details on how this objective is to be met, and Ministers have not yet said what funding will be available.

 

This system as it stands is unlikely to achieve it’s aims effectively or gain the confidence of the public.

 

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Note for editors: Families Need Fathers (FNF) is a registered charity providing information and support on shared parenting issues arising from family breakdown, and support to divorced and separated parents, irrespective of gender or marital status. Our primary concern is the maintenance of the child’s relationship with both parents. Founded in 1974, FNF helps thousands of parents every year.

 

 

Please see Families Need Fathers ‘programme for change’ Father’s Day Manifesto