Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the backlog of Child Maintenance Service enforcement cases and increase compliance.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department does not have a backlog of Child Maintenance Service (CMS) enforcement cases. All cases requiring enforcement action are being actively progressed in accordance with established operational procedures.
The Department continues to strengthen enforcement activity to ensure that parents meet their financial responsibilities. In recent years, it has expanded the range of enforcement powers available to the CMS, enhanced case‑handling processes, and invested in additional capability to take timely action when payments are missed.
As a result of this sustained focus, published statistics show a significant increase in compliance, with the proportion of paying parents who paid some maintenance rising from 64% in the quarter ending September 2022 to 74% in the quarter ending September 2025. The Department remains committed to driving further improvement.
System improvements have been introduced to allow earlier identification of cases at risk of non‑payment, enabling quicker action to re‑establish compliance when payments fail or become irregular.
As part of wider reforms, the Government proposes moving to a single service by removing Direct Pay and expanding the Collect and Pay service. This will create a fully monitored system in which all payments are visible in real time, making non‑compliance easier to detect and allowing faster enforcement intervention.
To strengthen enforcement further, work is underway to introduce administrative liability orders (ALOs), which would remove the need to apply to the courts and reduce the current process to around six weeks in most cases. The Department is working with HMCTS and the Scottish Government to introduce regulations to Parliament as soon as possible.
The CMS remains focused on ensuring that maintenance is paid promptly and in full.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Child Maintenance Service cases in each of the last five years have had a safeguarding flag applied due to domestic abuse concerns; and how many of those cases involved Collect and Pay arrangements.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
The Child Maintenance Serviced (CMS) takes the issue of domestic abuse very seriously and is committed to ensuring victims and survivors of abuse get the help and support they need to use the CMS safely.
CMS caseworkers are provided with domestic abuse training to ensure they understand, recognise and respond safely and appropriately to customers who are experiencing domestic abuse, or are survivors of domestic abuse. A programme of refresher training has been underway for all existing CMS colleagues during 2025.
There is a specialist team in place in CMS who deliver targeted support to parents subject to the most challenging and complex domestic abuse.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of Child Maintenance Service safeguarding procedures for parents who have experienced domestic abuse; and whether changes have been made to those procedures recently.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) takes the issue of domestic abuse very seriously and is committed to ensuring victims and survivors of abuse get the help and support they need to use the CMS safely.
The CMS has substantially strengthened its procedures and processes to support customers who are experiencing domestic abuse. They will not be complacent and will always look at ways to go even further.
The CMS has refreshed its approach and understanding of domestic abuse to include financial and coercive control and better awareness of how abuse affects all genders.
A programme of refresher training has been underway for all existing CMS colleagues during 2025.
The CMS has access to resources which help caseworkers provide signposting to supporting organisations, and a Domestic Abuse Plan which includes clear steps to follow in order to support customers who are experiencing abuse. The list of resources and Domestic Abuse Plan are regularly reviewed.
As well as the Domestic Abuse Plan, the CMS responds to cases involving domestic abuse in several ways, including by acting as an intermediary in Direct Pay cases, and providing advice on how to set up bank accounts with a centralised sort code to limit the risk of a parent’s location being traced.
There is a specialist team in CMS who deliver targeted support to parents subject to the most challenging and complex domestic abuse.
We have implemented a more efficient process to move a case to collect and pay when the receiving parent reports missed payments.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of Child Maintenance Service delays and errors on child poverty levels and low-income households.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
We know that children in separated families are poorer and more likely to live in poverty than those in non-separated families. Child maintenance payments through both statutory and non-statutory arrangements keep approximately 120,000 children out of poverty each year.
The Department legally relies on data from HM Revenue & Customs and its own benefits data to assess 90% of paying parents earned income and benefit status, which are key parts of the maintenance calculation and maintains a stable accuracy rate of 99.5%
CMS undertake regular quality assurance checks and continually monitors processes to identify improvements.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many children are included in Child Maintenance Service cases in which the paying parent has been subject to three or more separate enforcement actions for non payment.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested on the number of children in Child Maintenance Service cases which have been subject to three or more separate enforcement actions is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the annual collection rate is for child maintenance under (a) Collect and Pay and (b) Direct Pay.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department regularly publishes Child Maintenance Service official statistics, with the latest statistics available to September 2025. Table 4 and Table 5 of the accompanying National tables provide information on the amount of child maintenance that should have been paid through Direct Pay and Collect and Pay arrangements, as well as the amounts that remain unpaid under each method.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of enforcement, including the recovery rate following (a) liability orders, (b) bailiff action and (c) deduction orders.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department monitors the effectiveness of Child Maintenance Service (CMS) enforcement processes to ensure compliance and support the collection of maintenance owed to children.
The information requested on assessments of the effectiveness of individual enforcement routes, including recovery rates is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
However, the Department publishes Child Maintenance Service (CMS) statistics regularly, and the latest statistics on enforcement actions taken by CMS, including the amount of money collected, are available for September 2025 in the latest data tables.
‘Table 6.1: Enforcement Actions, Great Britain, April 2015 to September 2025’ provides information on the amounts recovered and actions taken by CMS, including sanctions and other Civil Enforcement actions.
Please refer to the ‘Notes’ provided below the tables and the ‘Child Maintenance Service statistics: background information and methodology’ document for further detail and guidance on interpretation.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what funding provisions are being put in place for hospice care, in the context of rising costs of living and changing needs of the staff.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Palliative care services are included in the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission. This promotes a more consistent national approach and supports commissioners in prioritising palliative care and end of life care. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications.
We understand the financial pressures faced by the hospice sector which is why we are supporting eligible adult, and children and young people’s hospices in England with a £100 million capital funding boost to ensure they have the best physical environment for care.
Additionally, we are also providing £26 million of revenue funding for children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26 and have also recently confirmed the continuation of this vital funding of at least £26 million, as it will be adjusted for inflation, each year from 2026/27 to 2028/29 inclusive. This amounts to approximately £80 million over the next three years.
On hospice staff-related costs specifically, independent organisations, such as charities and social enterprises, are free to develop and adapt their own terms and conditions of employment, including pay scales. It is for them to determine what is affordable within the financial model they operate.
In the long term, through our Modern Service Framework (MSF), we hope that, by supporting ICBs to commission more strategically, we can move away from grant and block contract models. This would be more sustainable and help hospices plan ahead.
I refer the Rt Hon. Member to the Written Ministerial Statement HCWS1087 I gave to the House.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has had discussions with NICE on the potential merits of innovative brain cancer treatments in Germany that are not currently available on the NHS.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, has had no discussions with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on the potential merits of innovative brain cancer treatments in Germany that are not currently available on the National Health Service.
In England, NICE makes recommendations for the NHS on whether new licensed medicines should be routinely funded by the NHS based on an assessment of clinical and cost effectiveness. The NHS is legally required to fund NICE recommended medicines, normally within three months of final guidance, and cancer medicines are eligible for funding from the point of a positive draft NICE recommendation. NICE aims wherever possible to issue guidance on new medicines close to the time of licensing to ensure that patients are able to benefit from rapid access to clinically and cost effective new medicines.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Child Maintenance Service cases involve missed payments for more than three months before enforcement action begins; and what factors account for delays.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested on the time from missed payments to enforcement action is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) remains committed to ensuring that children receive the financial support to which they are entitled and will always attempt to secure alternative methods of payments to gain improved compliance in cases where this fails.
While enforcement aims to be swift, paying parents have a right to appeal, which can delay proceedings. The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) must balance timely action with procedural fairness.