Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many parents are (a) making child maintenance payments through the Child Maintenance Service and (b) in arrears on those payments.

The principle of the Child Maintenance Service is to increase levels of cooperation between separated parents and encourage parents to meet their responsibilities to provide financial support for their children through their own family-based arrangements where possible. Where a family-based child maintenance arrangement is not suitable we offer a statutory scheme to those parents who need it.

The Government is dedicated to ensuring parents meet their obligations to children and the Child Maintenance Service will do everything within its powers to make sure parents comply. Where parents fail to pay their child maintenance, the Service will not hesitate to use its enforcement powers, including deductions from earnings orders, removal of driving licences, disqualification from holding a passport, and committal to prison. The Service is committed to using these powers fairly and in the best interests of children and separated families.

The Department publishes quarterly statistics for the Child Maintenance Service and the latest statistics are available up to March 2024. The number of Paying Parents using the Collect and Pay service are published on Stat-Xplore in the CMS Paying Parents dataset.

In the latest quarter ending on 31 March 2024, there were 188,945 parents due to pay through the Collect and Pay service. Information on the full arrears status of those parents is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.