Children: Maintenance

(asked on 25th January 2024) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Government's consultation entitled Child Maintenance: Improving our enforcement powers through the commencement of curfew orders, published on 9 July 2022, what his Department's planned timetable is for laying the commencement order relating to curfew orders.


Answered by
Paul Maynard Portrait
Paul Maynard
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 30th January 2024

The Child Maintenance Service already has a suite of strong enforcement powers at its disposal. These include, using Enforcement Agents (previously known as bailiffs) to take control of goods, forcing the sale of property, removal of driving licence or UK passport, deductions directly from earnings and bank accounts or even commitment to prison. We have explored how Curfews could be implemented as an additional enforcement measure to improve compliance. Several enforcement initiatives aimed at improving compliance are currently in train and we need to get those in place and assess their effects before we can best see how curfews might fit with them. We are continuing to keep their introduction under review.

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