Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of removing the three month limit on backdated payments for child benefit.

Where no one has claimed Child Benefit, the government allows claims to be backdated three months. Three months backdating is already more generous than most other social security benefits. A more generous backdating would make it harder to verify evidence and establish entitlement since entitlement to Child Benefit relies upon being responsible for a child each week. For this reason, the government believes that the three-month backdating period for Child Benefit is a fair and reasonable time in which to allow those wishing to claim Child Benefit to do so.