All 1 Debates between Kit Malthouse and Michelle Donelan

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kit Malthouse and Michelle Donelan
Monday 5th February 2018

(6 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Kit Malthouse Portrait Kit Malthouse
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My hon. Friend makes a strong point, and he is absolutely right. National statistics, on a number of measures, have shown child poverty falling. In particular, we have seen 200,000 children over the past few years move out of absolute poverty.

Michelle Donelan Portrait Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)
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For too long, parents have been able to hide their earnings from their child maintenance payment calculations, creating and adding to child poverty. What action are the Government taking to stop this?

Kit Malthouse Portrait Kit Malthouse
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As my hon. Friend knows, the child maintenance system was put in place to enable greater co-operation between parents, on the basis that that often results in a much better outcome for children, but there are parents who fail to do that, and for those circumstances, we have invested significantly in the financial investigations unit of the Child Maintenance Service. We will be consulting further on what more we can do to strengthen our enforcement powers.