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Child Maintenance Service: Standards

Asked by Jo PlattLabour (Co-op)Department for Work and PensionsTabled Answered 10 July 2025UIN 64471

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Government’s response to the consultation entitled Child Maintenance: Improving the Collection and Transfer of Payments, published on 23 June 2025, what steps she is taking to prevent non-compliant paying parents from exploiting exemptions to the 20% non-compliance fee.

Answered by Andrew Western

By replacing Direct Pay, we will tackle non-compliance, reduce opportunities for domestic abuse and lift children out of poverty.

As part of this, we will require all those parents who are non-compliant to pay a 20% collection fee. We do not envisage there being any exceptions to the fee for parents who refuse to pay what they owe.

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