06/11/2011 The Politics Show East Midlands

Coming up in the East Midlands: growing anger over the Child

Support Agency. Communities Minister, Andrew

Stunnell, is a Lib Dem. But that doesn't cut any ice with a Lib Dem

council leader in our region. He'll be telling us why he's urging him

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2215 seconds

Hello. Coming up in the East Midlands:

Communities Minister, Andrew Stunnell, is a Lib Dem. But that

doesn't cut any ice with a Lib Dem council leader in our region. He

will be telling us why he is urging him to quit.

First, the Child Support Agency says absent parents in the East

Midlands owe a staggering �200 million in maintenance payments.

Now the Government wants to replace the agency with a service that

parents would have to pay towards. In a moment, we will be asking our

MPs how that is likely to work. First, our Political Editor on the

human cost of those statistics. The joy of a new baby. The outcome

of a loving relationship. But what happens when the child's parents go

their separate ways? This nursery rhyme can have a less than happy

ending with the CSA. This woman has battled to get money from her

former partner. When things get really sticky, eventually money can

be taken at source through their employer. But when they are self-

employed, that isn't the case. has one of 90,000 cases in our

region being handled by the CSA. my particular case, it is quite

ineffective. They share my frustrations. He refuses to answer

telephone calls or answer my letters. This has gone to court

several times and he has not appeared. We have a happy home, but

it is not fair that ex-partners can just decide if they are not going

to pay when they are self-employed. It was back in 1993 that John

Major's government introduced the CSA, the Child Support Agency. Its

aim was to pursue parents, mainly fathers, who fail to support their

children financially. But almost from the start it was accused of

hounding father who were already paying up. And those who were

failing to help mothers like Jedda from Nottingham. Her ex-husband

refused to pay anything, as she told the Politics Show. The honours

was left on mothers -- the onus was left on mothers to find absinthe

father's. Soon, only parents who have been victims of domestic

violence will be able to get free access to the CSA. Might case has

been with seven officers. -- my case. Brendan Price, a former

Ofsted inspector, says he has been a victim of the Child Support

Agency twice over. When he broke up with his ex-wife, he gave her all

the proceeds from the sale of their home. This is his story. I had

signed over my house to my ex-wife in court, but that was not

recognised by the CSA. Brendan then had a child with another woman. He

says ever since that relationship broke up, he has paid the agreed

maintenance, but the CSA keep insisting he still owes them.

of the blue in 2009, I got an assessment from the CSA. It took me

six months to find out what was happening. They claimed that I was

due them �4,500 of back payments. I did not. They just call after easy

targets and do their job ineffectively. Obviously, I am

really angry with them. According to the CSA, the total of child

maintenance payments now all it stands at �211 million in a region

alone. Now there is a new approach. Parents must agree over the

payments, but there are charges for the service. Gingerbread, a charity

that supports single parents, says making people pay will cause

significant problems for those least able to help themselves.

Repaying payment -- paying parent could be paying up to 20% of their

income. -- 20% of the money for their children towards the

government. This is taking money away from their children. Natalie

Johnson from Kirkby in Ashfield reads to one of her two young

children. Her attempt to agree maintenance payments with her ex-

partner collapsed when he had a baby by another relationship. She

is appalled at the coalition's plans to introduce fees. The money

that my children are entitled to is needed for her fuel for the family

car, their school uniform, their lunch, their bus fare. There are a

lot of things that parents need and the need this money to pay for.

This woman says that the new system will not help when former partners

are self-employed. Again, this is taking money away from the children

at the end of the day. Be will be a few years yet before the new

service finds his feet. Improved and more efficient is the hope of

the Government. It may need some early successes to avoid the new

service from being just as discredited as the CSA.

We should point out that we asked the minister responsible, Maria

Miller, to contribute to our film and our studio discussion. But we

were told she wasn't available for either. Welcome to two of our MPs

who are always happy to come on the Politics Show, Mark Spencer and

Graham Allen. Mark, you are alerted us to these cases in the film we

have just seen. Let's deal with the first situation. The father of her

children has got out of paying the maintenance by saying he is self-

employed. The new plans will take some people out of the system so

that those officers that our present can spend more time

concentrating on these complicated cases. Is hoping enough? We have

seen how much is owed. It is a shocking statistics. Officers

needed time to going to the detail and really grabs some of these

cases by the scruff of the next. At the moment, they are inundated with

cases which are fairly simple, so they cannot concentrate on the

complicated ones. This is a legal loophole that needs plugging,

surely? I think self-employed ones are very difficult to kneel down.

It needs stronger action from some of these officers to be the looking

to their accounts and actually pin them down to the amount they should

be pm. Why didn't Labour take stronger action in the first place?

This has been a dog's breakfast for the last 25 years. You're dealing

with cases which are completely individual. Everyone has a separate

case. One of the things we need to do is to look at our young people

and make sure we give them the skills to maintain relationships

and understand that things are not always hunky-dory forever. They

have to balance what it is like to have a child, what it is like to

draw family. Many people going to relationships on the wrong basis.

Then the victims are the children of the future. It is always, always

the child who suffers. Do you accept that the CSA has did change?

Reform is required. The old CSA actually does not exist any more.

It has a new name. It has got slightly better. My main caseload

is child support cases, it is marginally better than it used to

be. I think we should keep a reformed version of this because

what the Government are proposing now is that people should be

charged in order to use the services of the CSA or its

equivalent. The people who need this most in my constituency are

mainly single mothers on poorer in comes. I have worked out that it is

at buyout 5,000 mothers who have been abandoned by their partners

and they need help. The need -- to ask them to pay money upfront and

then pay commission to an agency is not a good idea. There is a young

lady in my constituency who needs help at that precise moment and

will not get their help, but she will be landed with a bill. At the

moment, they're getting nothing. Dad has clear off and is paying

nothing. That is because those officers are chasing the easy

targets. Politicians have not really helped. We have complained

and complained. In order to placate politicians, they have chased the

easy targets to raise their income. More children will now be put into

poverty. We're trying to encourage the easier cases to come to their

own arrangements. We want them to be taken out of the system. Those

who are left were trying to abuse the way out of the system and not

contribute to their kids, it will give officers time to concentrate

on those cases and make sure that these people pay. Unfortunately,

separation is often acrimonious. The child will be the victim. These

are people who are restrained and have fallen out big time. I think,

to imagine that people can sit down and cook up a nice little deal will

not happen. They have a choice. Pay these very high fees or take a case

to court. People are my constituency dawn of the way around

the court. We are talking about people in difficult situations.

When you become a parent, that is the most important responsibility

you will ever have. Weaken fall-out over the CD player, but sorting out

the care of your children. -- we can fall out. That should be the

priority. Sort that out if you can. If you cannot, the Government will

step into her out. You have to read each a lot of people that if you

create a life, you're responsible for that life for the rest of your

own life. There are also disputes over contact with children. A lot

of fathers believe that a recent review was an opportunity to get

justice. But the review has not turned out that way. As a

politician, these particular cases scare me to death. You're coming to

them as an amateur. New dawn of the individuals and you have to take

the guidance of the professionals that advising you and have come to

a decision by the king at the detail. The last thing I ever want

to do is to insist that someone should have access and then that

goes horribly wrong after I have stepped in. These are complicated

cases. It is about time the legal establishment came to the party

here. Taking six months to deal with a case, that is a long period

of the life of a child. We have to make sure that children are not the

victims of this process. Let's briefly talk about another

issue. You chair the political and constitutional reform select

committee. This weekend, you are calling for it to be an offence to

fail to register to vote. Government has changed registration

from individuals to head of house sold filling out the form. Everyone

believes that is a good idea. But we are suggesting a way to move

this forwards with all-party consent. If you want to get rid of

me or Mark, you can only do that to the ballot box. You can only do

that if you have registered. The right to participate in our

democracy is fundamental in a democracy. You cannot complain

unless you vote, at the end of the day. Make sure you are on the

electoral roll and you can cast your vote. Phil -- thank you.

We know there are tensions within the coalition. But the Lib Dem

leader on Broxtowe District Council, David Watts, is taking things to a

new level. He is so unhappy with Lib Dem Communities Minister,

Andrew Stunnell, that he is calling on him to quit. In a moment, he

will be telling me why he has decided to voice his concerns on

the Politics Show. First, a glimpse of Mr Stunnell in action during a

debate on the green belt. The draft national planning policy

framework set out the Government's proposed policies on planning and

retains the key protections for the green belt. I want to emphasise

that. And to say to the Honourable Gentleman speaking from the

opposition front bench that I preferred his choice of poetry to

his choice of lawyer in his description of what we have done.

You say the minister's performance in that debate was the last straw.

Why? We have had 18 months of rubbish coming editor of the

department. Part of his job has got to be to make sure that what we're

getting from local government is quality. It is not happening for

start he was trying to inject some humour into proceedings, surely?

Humour is great in debate. But he has had a string of MPs asking for

assurances about what will be happening about green belt. He

didn't answer a single one of them. Is he not taking it seriously

enough? He doesn't realise the extent of the problem. Has he

replied to your letters? personally. We have also been in

touch. He has told us that he notes this sincere strength of your

feeling on the issue of the green belt. Does that appease you? Know.

I am delighted he notes the strength of feeling from myself and

other Lib Dem leaders across the country, but that is not doing

something about it. There are loads of organisations expressing very

genuine concern about what is going to happen to the green belt with

the changes that are proposed. is saying that there are worrying

needlessly. Tell us why. We have been asking about the Government

saying that there will be no change to the loss. Give us evidence to

the contrary, if the law is staying the same. He says that the

Government has constantly repeated that they want to protect the green

belt and he made that point in that debate. We are being pressurised to

build on the green belt by his department. How prepared are you to

take this further? I am sure he is a lovely bloke, but he is not doing

the job. If he improves, I will be delighted. If not, I will continue

to press for better. What more pressure can you put on him?

think I have probably done what I can, but I will continue to do it

for. Are you a lone voice, or are there others who agree with you?

And have had many messages of support. Equally, some have told me

I am wrong. We are a democratic party. I am not able to name names

of any of the other supporters, I am afraid. It is not a large grip,

but a sizable group. You are also unhappy about the �250 million the

coalition is making available for councils to reinstate a weekly bin

collections. Are you saying he has got are wrong as well?

Department has. The talk about localism and say it is up to local

government to decide what we want, but then say we can only have the

money if we do what they want us to do. Weekly bin collections our way

down my list of priorities. what about a public? We have had a

less than five requests in my region to bring back weekly

collections. They are wasting time and wasting money? We could invest

in town-centres, child-support, lots of things that are much more

important than bin collections. Several other senior Lib -- senior

Lib Dems have spoken out saying that government policy has formed -

- has failed. I thought the letter in the Guardian was stronger than I

would have put it. We need to get the deficit under control, but the

world is changing on an almost hourly basis in terms of finances.

We cannot just dogmatically say it is deficit reduction and nothing

else. Everything else that is going on around us has to be taken into

account as well. I would like to see more investment in people, in

jobs. Do we need an emergency recovery programme? I think we do,

otherwise we will be the next race. Thank you for joining us.

Last year, we reported on a controversial proposal to build a

farm for more than 20,000 pigs near Foston in Derbyshire. This week,

the proposal was rejected by South Derbyshire District Council after

opposition from the Health Protection Agency. But the final