Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)

It is quite feasible that I have missed the multiple efforts in the reading of the Bill. Maybe it is there—it might be another bit that I have missed. But I do not think that is clear, so maybe that could be clarified. I am sure that this is the intention—the problem is the principle. We were given the explanation that I thought we would be given: we are doing this directly and not going for judicial authorisation because the courts just have too much work on. I always worry about an explanation that says that it will cause too much work for the courts. On this basis, we may as well cut out sending anyone to a court and put them into prison—because that court process is so darned long-winded for everything, is it not? But we do not say that, because the court system sets in place safeguards to ensure that people are not unfairly treated. We do not have a direct situation where a Government of the day simply decide that the courts are dispensable with. That is the principle that I was trying to raise here, so I do not think that is a satisfactory answer. I was also unconvinced by the argument, which I will go through, that HMRC already has powers to deduct money directly from bank accounts under Schedule 8 to the Finance (No.2) Act 2015. Actually, there are statutory safeguards, including the requirement that HMRC retains £5,000 in the debtor’s accounts, and guidance about who HMRC should deem as at a particular disadvantage. That is not in this Bill. It is part of that Bill, which was cited as a reassurance to me. The comparison with child maintenance is also a false comparison. Child maintenance is money owed by one parent to ensure provision for their dependant who does not live with them. That differs greatly from an individual claiming money from, for example, the social security system, who potentially has been overpaid—as I keep pointing out, through no fault of their own. I do not think those two things count as equivalences at all. I was grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, for the amendment on stop-starting DDOs. I have some sympathy with her approach in terms of them being permanently never allowed to start again. My nervousness with it is that it feels so arbitrary. The explanation given was that people have messy lives, which is fine, but I do not want to be in a situation whereby I am nodding through a system that means that people could keep having their direct deduction orders stop and start because of the messiness of government. We are told that it is the messiness of people’s lives, but it is not clear that that would be the only reason why this would occur; it is not in the Bill. Of course, I shall not press my amendments, but I imagine that I will return with some of them on Report.