Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the total amount of child maintenance arrears owed to date; and of the total number of children for whom maintenance is accordingly outstanding.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) always encourages paying parents to pay their maintenance on time, to avoid accrual of arrears. Where a paying parent fails to pay on time or in full, the CMS aims to take immediate action to recover the debt and re-establish compliance. The CMS is committed to using its wide-ranging enforcement powers proportionally, and in the best interests of children and separated families.

The Department publishes Child Maintenance Service (CMS) statistics regularly and the relevant information can be accessed from Table 5 of the supplementary tables in the latest release.

Table 5 counts how much child maintenance due has accumulated since the CMS began, in 2012. At the end of June 2024 this was £654.6m. Please note that this figure does not include arrears incurred with the Child Support Agency pre-2012.

The information requested on the total number of children for whom maintenance is outstanding is not readily available, and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.