Welfare Reform Bill — Clause 131 — Exemption from Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission Fees — 1 Feb 2012 at 19:15
Richard Bacon MP, South Norfolk voted not to exempt parents from Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission fees where it is not possible or appropriate for them to have made a maintenance agreement.
The majority of MPs voted against a proposal to exempt parents from Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission fees where it is not possible or appropriate for them to have made a maintenance agreement.
MPs were considering the Welfare Reform Bill.[1]
The motion technically voted on was:
- That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 73
Amendment 73 stated[2]:
- Page 101, line 27, at end insert—
- “(3) In section 6 of the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 (provision to allow charging of fees by the Commission), after subsection (2) there is inserted—
- “(2A) Nothing in regulations under subsection (1) shall impose a liability on a parent with care for the payment of fees to the Commission where that parent has taken reasonable steps to establish whether it is possible or appropriate to make a maintenance agreement (within the meaning of section 9 of the Child Support Act 1991), and where, having taken such reasonable steps, it is either not possible or not appropriate for the parent with care to do so."
This would have been added to the clause relating to Collection of child support maintenance[3]
James Mackay (Lord Mackay of Clashfern, Conservative) explained why he moved the amendment in the Lords:
- My amendment is about a very simple matter of fairness. The government briefing dealing with the clause in its earlier form included the statement, which all of us may believe to be true, that,
- :"a significant proportion of parents will not be able to collaborate. For example, where an applicant has a former partner who refuses to engage or pay child maintenance voluntarily there would be no reasonable steps they could take".
- That is the group I am focusing on, because I do not believe that it is fair to require them to pay charges when they are not responsible for creating the need for the use of the service.
==
- [1] Welfare Reform Bill page on the Parliament website (now the Welfare Reform Act 2012)
- [2] Page of Lords Amendments to the Welfare Reform Bill - 1 February 2012 - containing amendment 73
- [3] Clause 131 of the Welfare Reform Bill as at 17 June 2011 which the proposed amendment would have changed
- [4] James Mackay (Lord Mackay of Clashfern, Conservative), House of Lords, 25 January 2012
Party Summary
Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.
What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.
What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.
What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.
Party | Majority (Aye) | Minority (No) | Both | Turnout |
Alliance | 0 | 1 | 0 | 100.0% |
Con | 272 (+1 tell) | 0 | 1 | 89.5% |
DUP | 0 | 7 | 0 | 87.5% |
Green | 0 | 1 | 0 | 100.0% |
Lab | 0 | 235 (+2 tell) | 0 | 91.9% |
LDem | 45 (+1 tell) | 4 | 0 | 87.7% |
PC | 0 | 2 | 0 | 66.7% |
SDLP | 0 | 3 | 0 | 100.0% |
SNP | 0 | 3 | 0 | 50.0% |
Total: | 317 | 256 | 1 | 89.9% |
Rebel Voters - sorted by party
MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division
Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote
Name | Constituency | Party | Vote |
Andrew Percy | Brigg and Goole | Con (front bench) | both |
Mike Hancock | Portsmouth South | whilst LDem (front bench) | no |
John Leech | Manchester, Withington | LDem (front bench) | no |
Bob Russell | Colchester | LDem (front bench) | no |
David Ward | Bradford East | LDem (front bench) | no |