Child Support Collection and Enforcement (Deduction Orders) Amendment Regulations 2009

My Lords, I am happy to write to the noble Lord in as much detail as I can, but I should stress that some 250,000 of the current caseload are non-compliant—that is, where money is not moving—but they are just the caseload in the statutory system, not those outside it. Some may have been outside the statutory system for a long period while others may be newly outside it once the Section 6 compulsion has been removed. In terms of the amount of maintenance collected, in the period to March 2009 it was £1.1 billion, up from £798 million in March 2005, so more money is flowing. Both noble Lords referred to the nature of the accounts we are seeking to reach with these orders. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, said that if they will not facilitate access to joint or third party accounts, that is an obvious loophole, and indeed the same point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood. I remember the debates we had on this when we considered the Bill last year. As I said when presenting the order, we are focusing on the accounts that we have identified because we believe they are the most fruitful ones from which to garner resources for children, but if our review shows that the potential loophole is being exploited, obviously we have primary powers to address it, and we would do that. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, made the point that this is really about self-employed people, and he is absolutely right that deductions from earnings orders almost by definition cannot apply if someone does not have earnings in terms of a salary or a wage. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, asked about the administration fee. It is set down in regulations and is the sum that will be levied by the deposit-takers for providing their services. Both noble Lords raised issues around the review. If that review leads to the need for further legislation, clearly there will be a consultation exercise and, quite properly, there will be debates in Parliament, particularly when regulations are brought forward. In terms of publishing the impact of that, I am sure that there will be one means or another by which that can happen. Noble Lords are thoroughly adept at securing debates on these issues whether there is a formal Motion before the House or not, and it is important that such debates should take place. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, referred to the training that was identified in the documentation. I should stress that at the start we are approaching this in a fairly low-key way to make sure that it works properly. I think that a figure of 140 cases per month was mentioned in the impact assessment, but the commission has developed specialist training in conjunction with officials with expertise in the policy. They developed the process with the bank section and detailed guidance is already available to deposit-takers.