Welfare Reform Bill — Clause 131 — Exemption from Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission Fees — 1 Feb 2012 at 19:15

Stewart Jackson MP, Peterborough 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.

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Debate in Parliament | Source |

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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.

PartyMajority (Aye)Minority (No)BothTurnout
Alliance0 10100.0%
Con272 (+1 tell) 0189.5%
DUP0 7087.5%
Green0 10100.0%
Lab0 235 (+2 tell)091.9%
LDem45 (+1 tell) 4087.7%
PC0 2066.7%
SDLP0 30100.0%
SNP0 3050.0%
Total:317 256189.9%

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

NameConstituencyPartyVote
Andrew PercyBrigg and GooleCon (front bench)both
Mike HancockPortsmouth Southwhilst LDem (front bench)no
John LeechManchester, WithingtonLDem (front bench)no
Bob RussellColchesterLDem (front bench)no
David WardBradford EastLDem (front bench)no

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