Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions his Department has had with HMRC on the potential use of coding‑out powers to support the collection of debts owed to the Child Maintenance Service.

The Department keeps under review a range of options to improve the collection of child maintenance and arrears, including the potential use of existing government debt collection mechanisms.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) already has a range of strong enforcement powers that are designed to get money flowing quickly, prevent the build-up of arrears and ensure children get the financial support they deserve. These powers include the ability to deduct directly from the paying parent’s earnings or bank accounts and disqualifications from holding or obtaining driving licenses and passports.

Therefore, while the Department continues to work closely with HMRC, debt collection work is currently focused on making best use of existing CMS powers, including improving the speed and effectiveness with which they are applied.

CMS has made significant improvements to the enforcement process to speed up action when payments first break down and to target activity more effectively.

In March 2025, CMS established a process to manage high and medium-risk cases using predictive analytics, resulting in earlier identification of at-risk cases and enabling caseworker intervention at the earliest opportunity where indicators of non-compliance are identified.

Additionally, our intention remains to remove Direct Pay when parliamentary time allows. Moving to a single, strengthened Collect and Pay system will allow the CMS to monitor all payments, identify missed or partial payments immediately, and take faster enforcement action. Ahead of this change, the CMS is already moving non-compliant parents more quickly from Direct Pay to Collect and Pay.