Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to help minimise the financial impact of a failure to pay child maintenance on the receiving parent.

It is a key principle that unpaid child maintenance should be paid immediately. Where a parent fails to pay on time or in full, the CMS will take action to re-establish compliance and collect any unpaid amounts that have accrued. Where compliance cannot be achieved the CMS actively pursues all outstanding child maintenance using a variety of enforcement options including deductions from earnings, deductions from benefits and identifying and securing cash balances and assets through its enforcement actions. If non-compliance persists, then sanctions including commitment to prison or the disqualification of a driving licence and removal of passport is considered.