text_body: --- DIVISION TITLE ---
  
  Welfare Reform Bill - Clause 131 - State pension credit: carers
  
  --- MOTION EFFECT ---
  
  @ MP voted no 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. 
  @ MP voted aye 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 insertâ
  :â(3) In section 6 of the [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/6/contents Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008] (provision to allow charging of fees by the Commission), after subsection (2) there is insertedâ
  :â(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 [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1991/48/section/9/enacted 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] [http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-12/welfarereform.html Welfare Reform Bill page on the Parliament website] (now the Welfare Reform Act 2012)
  * [2] [http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/2010-2012/0302/12302.5-11.html Page of Lords Amendments to the Welfare Reform Bill - 1 February 2012 - containing amendment 73]
  * [3] [http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/2010-2012/0075/lbill_2010-20120075_en_20.htm#pt6-pb2-l1g131 Clause 131 of the Welfare Reform Bill as at 17 June 2011 which the proposed amendment would have changed]
  * [4] [http://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?gid=2012-01-25a.1090.0 James Mackay (Lord Mackay of Clashfern, Conservative), House of Lords, 25 January 2012]
  
  
  
  --- COMMENTS AND NOTES ---
  
  (put thoughts and notes for other researchers here)
  