Member

Thirdly, the Bill already makes sufficient provisions for the debtor to challenge the direct deduction order through rights to make representations before any money is taken. They can come and challenge us and then they can appeal to the tribunal concerning the terms of the deduction order. I do not consider that this puts the debtor at disadvantage. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that the court will normally make a third-party debt order in the creditor’s favour, unless the debtor contests the application and evidences that it would be unfair or inappropriate. I do not see that requiring court authorisation would grant a debtor any additional safeguard over the proposed appeal rights in the Bill—they would still get to have their day in court if they wished it—but it would make routine and uncontested deduction orders unnecessarily complex to achieve if we were to go down the route that she described. As I said, that is on top of the existing mandatory reconsideration and appeal rights for the overpayment decision itself.