Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many liability orders have the Child Maintenance Services applied for in respect of non-resident parents who have repeatedly failed meet their child maintenance payment obligations in each of the last five years.

The Child Maintenance Service may seek a Liability Order only when a Paying Parent has not met their obligations and other measures have been exhausted. In England and Wales, such orders may enable referral to enforcement agents, previously known as bailiffs, to recover arrears. In Scotland, enforcement proceeds through the Scottish civil court system.

The Department regularly publishes Child Maintenance Service official statistics, with the latest statistics available to September 2025. Table 6.1 of the accompanying National tables provides the information about enforcement actions used by the CMS. The table shows quarterly statistics for liability order applications and enforcement agent referrals for England & Wales, between October 2015 and September 2025.