Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much child maintenance debt his Department has written off for (a) 1993 and (b) 2003 scheme cases since April 2015.

£17.3m of Child Maintenance debt was written off between 1 April 2015 and 31 January 2016 following confirmation from the Parent With Care that they did not want the arrears to be collected.

£2.7m was written off where either the Non-Resident Parent or the Parent with Care had died.

A further £0.6m was written off for a variety of reasons including: amount being less than £65 due to the Secretary of State or situations where legislation does not permit recovery.