Why second wives could pay child support for husband’s first family

SeCOND wives could have to contribute to their husband’s first family under a crackdown on child maintenance dodgers.

Rules announced yesterday give officials the power to confiscate cash from a suspected cheat’s joint bank account with his new spouse. As a result a second wife risks losing a slice of her earnings to provide an income for her husband’s ex and for children who are not her own.

Ministers promised new laws to allow the Child Maintenance Service to deduct money from joint and business bank accounts alongside other new sanctions, including confiscating passports from parents who repeatedly refuse to pay.

Family support minister Justin Tomlinson said: ‘We are closing a loophole that allows people to hide money in joint accounts, but there are thorough checks to protect the money owned by other account holders.’ Campaign group Families Need Fathers said the new rule amounts to ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’. Spokesman Michael Lewkowitz said: ‘This is a very blunt instrument.

‘It will push families who are already in poverty into a desperate position. The Department of Work and Pensions has brought out the heavy weaponry without looking at the flaws in their formula.’

He added that the new rule may influence decisions by couples to marry and establish joint bank accounts. ‘It may have unintended consequences in the way people organise their families,’ Mr Lewkowitz said. In the past officials have only been able to confiscate cash from personal bank accounts. A paper from the DWP yesterday said there would be ‘robust checks’ on funds to protect a second account holder being unfairly penalised. Officials will check six months of statements to check who is paying into it before they take funds.

Among other sanctions will be systems to try to seize the assets of parents who hide their money in complicated financial networks, and a new investigation unit to chase those who fail to pay.

Ministers also plan to abandon efforts to collect billions in unpaid maintenance during the disastrous regime operated by the Child Support Agency from 1993 to 2003.

Sumi Rabindrakumar of the single parents’ charity Gingerbread said: ‘It is a sober reminder that the DWP must up its game to avoid history repeating itself.’

‘This is a very blunt instrument’