Absent parents face new crackdown

Two new Bills aimed at giving children "the best possible start in life" have been unveiled.

In the next parliamentary session a Children in Care Bill and a Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill will be taken through Parliament.

The Children in Care Bill, for England and Wales, aims to ensure young people receive the best quality of care.

It includes measures to improve the quality of care and give children a say in the decisions affecting them.

And it also seeks to ensure they are not forced out of care before they are ready.

The Bill gives local authorities more power in regulating social work practices and commissioning services from them.

The aim is to close the gap in exam results between children in care and their peers.

The Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill will see a new body established to ensure absent parents pay maintenance for their children.

Under the legislation, the failed Child Support Agency will be replaced by the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission.

The new commission will be able to subject non-payers to curfews, as well as take cash from their bank account and confiscate their passports.

The law also changes the way maintenance payments are calculated by using gross weekly income rather than net and allows data-sharing with credit reference agencies.

And the Bill will also see a scheme set up to pay a lump sum to people suffering from the asbestos-related disease mesothelioma, who are not currently eligible for compensation.