Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure that parents paying towards child maintenance comply with payment timelines during the covid-19 outbreak.

Paying Parents have a regular schedule of payments to make and all parents are expected to make payments according to the schedule during their claim. Child Maintenance payments are routinely made via an automated method direct from the Paying Parents bank account or wages.

Paying parents are still expected to pay child maintenance throughout this period. Our priority is to maintain the flow of maintenance by easing the financial pressure on parents and ensuring that we transfer the payments as quickly as possible to receiving parents, and resources are focussed on ensuring payments are made where Child Maintenance Service has received them.