Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of requiring the Child Maintenance Service to calculate a paying parent's liability using their household income rather than their individual income.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) operates on the principle that both parents have financial responsibility for their child, including contributing to their food and clothing, as well as contributing towards the associated costs of running the home that the child lives in. The calculation represents an amount of money that is broadly commensurate with the amount that a paying parent would spend on the child if they were still living with them.

The CMS will assess how much the paying parent should pay the receiving parent, which in most cases is based on a percentage of the paying parent's gross annual income, before tax and national insurance but after pension contributions. This can also include income from certain assets, savings and investment such as dividends or property income. Income from other members of the household is not considered as they have no financial responsibility for the qualifying child.

The income of the receiving parent is not taken into consideration as they are already contributing as the child's primary caregiver and their income should not remove the responsibility of a paying parent to support their child.