My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for adding her support to this amendment, in which we return to the issue of economic coercive control, which we explored in today’s group 7, this time in respect of child support payments, which help with the cost of raising the child and can be used for everything from daily subsistence to helping to provide a home. They are vital for the security of a child who is often the victim of abuse himself.
When domestic abuse has occurred and the partners have separated, getting money out of the abuser for child maintenance and other things can, as we have already heard, be difficult and dangerous. The abuser will have the instrument of non-payment as a further tool of economic abuse, despite the fact that not only the ex-partner will suffer but so too will the children for whose benefit the payment is made. Child maintenance arrangements can be organised privately, through the government-run Child Maintenance Service or, more rarely, through a court order. When I was an MP in 2005 to 2015, in quite an affluent area, failure to pay child maintenance was a frequent issue that came up in my surgery. The Child Maintenance Service was severely criticised for failing to enforce payments to the parent with care, and for slowness to act and to process claims. Therefore, when looking at the Commons discussion on this amendment, which was raised by my honourable friend Christine Jardine, I was glad to read that the Minister, Alex Chalk, asserted that matters regarding the CMS’s performance had improved. That is great news, and I commend the Government on the work they have done with input from Women’s Aid and other charities to improve matters, and particularly on issuing a fee waiver in 2017 for survivors of domestic abuse who apply to the CMS for help. However, that fee waiver needs to be better publicised. Many victims are unaware of it.
I also welcome other improvements that the Government have introduced, including avoiding the risk of abuse as a result of having to give up new personal details, such as bank details, when setting up direct payments. However, parents often discover that banks and even CMS staff are unaware of some provisions, including non-geographic-specific bank accounts, which would avoid having to reveal the victim’s location to the perpetrator. These improvements can work only if people know about them.
10.15 pm
Domestic violence can be a barrier to setting up child maintenance arrangements at all, with an estimated one in four receiving parents citing domestic violence
as their reason for not going to the CMS for help. So many survivors are still trapped, facing the unenviable choice of applying for financial support and risking further abuse, or avoiding abuse and facing financial hardship. We know that many parents covered by the CMS, even with all the improvements to the service, still fail to pay.
In his response to Christine Jardine, Alex Chalk points to improvements in compliance with the collect and pay service, which has risen between 2017 to 2019 from 57% to 68%. But that is still nearly one-third of victims whom the system is still failing. Victims can report the perpetrator and come into the collect and pay service, but many are fearful of doing this for fear of inflaming tensions with an ex-partner who will then face hefty collection charges if the CMS steps in. The Government have made some good steps in a horrendously difficult situation but, despite their claims of not only issuing some guidance and some training, the system could do better. That is why, in further consultation with charities such as Women’s Aid, the Government should look again at how this group of victims can get their lives, their children’s lives and their economic freedom back. I beg to move.