Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what her Department's policy is on claiming back child benefit from parents who have lost a child in the year since the payment was made.

Entitlement to Child Benefit continues for eight weeks after the date of a child’s death. This recognises that the period following such a traumatic event is particularly difficult and avoids causing additional distress from the immediate removal of financial support. After this point, where a death of a child is not made known to HMRC, any overpayments of Child Benefit are ordinarily recoverable. However, HMRC has processes in place designed to limit overpayments in these circumstances. This includes using regular data from the registry of births marriages and deaths to sensitively contact customers where they have suffered the loss of a child. Similarly, where a customer informs DWP through their 'Tell Us Once Service', this information is passed to HMRC and used to end the Child Benefit claim.