House of Lords rebukes government again

The House of Lords rebuked the British government Wednesday, turning down a plan to charge single parents for help they receive from the child support agency. The 270-128 vote was the second defeat in the upper house this week for the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. The peers supported an amendment Monday by John Packer, the bishop of Ripon and Leeds, to exempt child benefit from a 26,000-pound ($40,700) annual cap on household benefits. The government argued the charge would discourage parents, usually mothers, from using the agency as a collection service for child support, The Guardian reported. Ministers said it would encourage estranged parents to settle disputes. Critics, including prominent Conservative peers, said it would discourage impoverished single parents who need help from getting it. "The motivation for these charges is said by the government to bring people to voluntary agreement," said James, Baron Mackay of Clashfern, a former lord chancellor. "I am entirely in favor of that, but if that proves impossible where the woman is at the stage where there is nothing more she can do, the only thing she can do is pay. And what does that do? If anything that might make her not go to the agency at all and the child may lose their maintenance."