Reforming the Child Maintenance Service (Public Services Committee Report)

Baroness Stedman-Scott Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, I first declare an interest, in that I was a member of the Public Services Committee. I loved being on that committee—and you will not hear that about many committees, I can tell you—and found it to be a really stimulating experience, so I applaud the chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley.

Along with my noble friend Lady Coffey, I had responsibility for the Child Maintenance Service when I was at the DWP, and we worked well together on that. I was horrified, and at times incandescent with rage, at the lengths to which people went to avoid paying their child maintenance. If I had the time, I would keep noble Lords here with some of the stories; they would make your hair curl.

When we are talking about child maintenance, it is easy to make the discussion about parents: who owes whom what, whether they are paying on time or the correct amount and, often, how the split occurred in the first place and who is to blame. These conversations and questions are important but also largely tangential. The person at the centre of this is the child. Being a child with parents who split up is not easy. Research shows that children with split parents are more likely to face lower academic achievement, more behavioural or emotional difficulties, a higher risk of economic disadvantage and a strain on relationships later in life. Children from these backgrounds often have to grow up fast to act as mediators between adults who do not have a stable or amicable relationship with one another, and they often feel adrift. Other children go back to their house, but these children go back to mum’s house or dad’s house, never to a place that they can call their home. Children with parents who have not split amicably can suffer even more, and they often face this alone. Being a child in this situation, which they did not choose, can be lonely, upsetting and confusing, and all too often these children can feel like extras in a drama being played out between their parents.

Child maintenance is therefore more than just a payment between adults; it is a mechanism designed to go some way towards addressing the disadvantages that children from broken homes face early in their lives, one of which is a reduced household income if living with a single parent. Ensuring that the child maintenance system works well is therefore fundamentally important and must be an absolute priority for all of us in this Room today.

Given the importance of getting this right, the committee’s report makes deeply concerning reading. It tells us, as others have said, that around 4 million out of 14 million children in the UK live in separated families. That is millions of children whose security and stability may depend, at least in part, on the Child Maintenance System working properly. The report also raises serious concerns about the way that payments are calculated. The formula is now more than 20 years old and is based largely on the income of the paying parent. The committee finds that the system lacks transparency, does not properly reflect the variety of modern family circumstances and may leave room for income to be underreported.

As I understand it, tax evasion is unlawful. Child maintenance evasion should be treated exactly the same. The Government’s own recently published research on child maintenance calculations reinforces many of the committee’s concerns. It found that parents on both sides of the system frequently regard existing arrangements as unfair and that compliance is influenced not only by affordability but by conflict between parents and wider family relationships. That should remind us that confidence in the system depends not only on effective enforcement but on transparency, fairness and the ability of parents to understand how decisions are reached.

I also note the Government’s proposal to reduce the income tolerance threshold from 25% to 15%, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, so ably described, so that changes in parents’ earnings are reflected more quickly in maintenance calculations. In principle, that appears to be a sensible attempt to make the system more responsive to real-world income changes. However, it also underlines the broader point made by the committee that the current framework relies heavily on historical data and assumptions that can quickly drift away from a family’s actual circumstances.

It is worth noting that concerns about the calculation framework are not new. Successive reviews have identified questions around fairness, transparency and affordability, and Governments of different political colours have sought to address them. The challenge now is to ensure that this long-running programme of reform is carried forward rather than allowed to drift.

I come to enforcement. My first ever visit as a Minister was to the Child Maintenance Service in Plymouth. It was a massive place with lots of staff, and I talked to them at length about enforcement. The team at the Child Maintenance Service responsible for enforcement in my time was outstanding. Its members deserved all the credit they could get. They never flinched from dealing with situations: it was just that they had too many situations to deal with. If my friend the Minister can do one thing, it should be to get more people into enforcement to get more money for children. If we spent more—here is a Tory talking about spending more—and we calculated the potential return on investment, we could make life better for these young people.

Ultimately, this all comes back to the child. That is why I particularly welcome the committee’s recommendation that the child should be placed at the centre of the calculation formula, with their welfare and future made the paramount consideration. We should remind ourselves that these children did not cause this situation. They did not choose it and did not ask for it, yet they are the ones most profoundly affected by it.

Other recommendations from the report also seem sensible and would allow the system to deliver for children. Improving enforcement, redefining what counts as non-compliance, and giving parents clear and timely updates would all help ensure that more maintenance payments are actually made. It is simply unacceptable that, under the current system, too many parents are able to avoid making payments owed to their children. The evidence shows that this is most often fathers, who on average earn more than mothers, leaving the mothers to carry the financial burden alone.

The committee also pays special attention to vulnerable parents and those who are at risk of financial and domestic abuse, which is most welcome. When someone becomes the receiving parent, they face serious financial costs and are particularly open to the risk of financial abuse. If someone has suffered a difficult separation from a partner, this is heightened even further. Proposals such as allowing direct access to collect and pay for abuse victims are worth consideration by the Government.

There is one further aspect of the committee’s report that deserves particular attention. While child maintenance is often discussed in financial terms, the evidence presented to the committee reminds us that the underlying challenges are frequently relational as much as economic. My noble friend Lord Farmer outlined this eloquently and in a way that we should all be able to understand. That is why I welcome the committee’s emphasis on early intervention and support for separated parents. Helping parents access advice, mediation and practical support at an earlier stage may not only reduce conflict but increase the likelihood of durable arrangements that work in the best interests of children.

Family hubs, which have grown under this Government, have a great impact and effect. Making them the centre, and a place where child maintenance can be discussed and managed, is a no-brainer. I am sure the Minister will take this away and try to make it happen. I hope she does; if not, we will all be on to her.

Ultimately, if we are serious about improving outcomes for children, we must do more than administer payments efficiently; we must also support parents to manage separation in a way that minimises conflict, fulfils parental responsibilities and places the welfare of children above all else. It is important to recognise that many of the issues identified by the committee have been the subject of reform efforts over a number of years. The introduction of the 2012 system under the coalition Government, subsequent work to strengthen enforcement and more recent measures aimed at improving protections for victims of domestic violence or abuse all reflect a recognition that the status quo was and is not good enough. While those reforms have not resolved every problem, they provide a foundation on which further improvements can and should be built.

The report produced by the committee gives the Government some serious food for thought. As a number of noble Lords have observed, lasting reform will require us not only to improve the mechanics of the system but to support families earlier, reduce conflict where possible and help parents make arrangements that put children first. Whether or not children should be properly supported, the fulfilment of parental duties encouraged and vulnerable people recognised are not matters of partisan difference; I know that there is a great deal of sympathy across the House for meaningful change to make sure that these are upheld.

The question for the Government is therefore not whether reform is needed, but whether they will now complete and implement the reforms that have already been identified. Families who depend upon the Child Maintenance Service cannot afford for necessary changes to remain indefinitely under review. I will be listening carefully to the response from the Minister on the concerns that have been raised by everybody who has spoken in this debate and that in the Chamber today.

I thank the committee again for its work—I am sorry that I was not with your Lordships—and for enabling us to have this debate. There is much in the report to command our attention but, my goodness, there is more to do. As the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said, the work is not complete.