Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many staff from the Child Maintenance Service have been temporarily redeployed to other service areas in her Department in response to the covid-19 outbreak.

We have received an unprecedented number of benefit claims and are prioritising getting people that support, while maintaining an essential Child Maintenance Service.

To ensure claims are processed and people are paid on time we have already moved over 8,000 existing staff from across DWP to help with that work.

We are clear that no parent should be using this time as an excuse not to pay what they owe. Those found to be abusing the system at this difficult time could find themselves subject to the full extent of our enforcement powers.

At the start of the situation within the Child Maintenance Group, 1667 people were deployed.