Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate his Department has made of the likely proportion of parents with care with child maintenance arrears whose CSA cases will be closed as part of the scheduled case closure process who will opt to have their child maintenance arrears (a) written off as part of the shutdown and (b) transferred to the child maintenance service for future collection.

We cannot predict how many parents with care will agree to have their child maintenance arrears written off during the case closure process; however all will be given the opportunity to do so. No estimates have been published for the amount of Child Support Agency arrears that will be (a) written off in full, (b) written off in part, (c) re-valued to take account of a previous interim maintenance assessment, or (d) transferred to the Child Maintenance Service for collection.