Fathers who refuse to pay child support will be 'named and shamed' on the Internet in a new crackdown to be unveiled this week.
Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton said yesterday that he wants the Child Support Agency (CSA)to 'come down like a ton of bricks' on parents who fail to fulfill their responsibilities to their children.
The crisis-ridden CSA is facing abolition after failing to recover £3.5 billion in unpaid debts much of which is expected to be written off at a cost to taxpayers of around £2 billion.
But before it is scrapped, ministers want to give the agency new powers to pursue deadbeat dads who they have failed to track down.
Offenders could be stripped of their passports, tagged or subjected to curfews under proposals in a government white paper to be published on Wednesday.
But political rivals dismissed the plans as a 'gimmick' that will do little to get to improve the situation and warned that naming offenders on the Internet could leave the agency open to legal action if the information made public is incorrect.
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