Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Child Maintenance Service in enforcing payments for resident parents during the covid-19 outbreak.

Paying parents are still expected to pay child maintenance throughout this period. We know the vast majority of parents take their responsibilities extremely seriously and will do whatever is needed to ensure their children are supported. Where payments have been missed we have asked parents to report the changes via the self-service portal.

In order to ensure that receiving parents do not lose out in the long run, we will update cases with notified changes as soon as possible. Where payments have been missed the Service will take action to re-establish compliance and collect any unpaid amounts that may have accrued.

No one will get away with giving false information. Those found to be abusing the system can be subjected to the full extent of our enforcement powers and the Child Maintenance Service will pursue these, where appropriate.