Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of civil enforcement actions for the non payment of child maintenance liability orders in each of the last five years.

The number of civil enforcement actions for non payment of a child maintenance liability are published quarterly in Table 11 of the Child Maintenance Service experimental statistics data tables, which can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/684262/tables-child-maintenance-service-august-2013-to-december-2017.ods

A Paying Parent can be taken to court over unpaid child maintenance. The courts can grant liability orders which allow the parent to be referred to Enforcement Agents who could come and take away property to be sold to pay the unpaid maintenance and costs. The courts could also apply a charging order to force the parent to sell property (Orders for Sale) and use the money to pay off the unpaid maintenance. If these methods fail the Child Maintenance Service can apply for the courts to disqualify the parent from driving or send them to prison.