Children: Maintenance

(asked on 29th April 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, which groups of parents are not required to pay child maintenance; and what estimate her Department has made of the number of parents who are primary carers for children who do not receive child maintenance.


Answered by
Will Quince Portrait
Will Quince
This question was answered on 7th May 2019

All parents have a responsibility to support their children. Where an application is made to the Child Maintenance Service, a liability will be calculated based on the gross taxable income of the paying parent, provided all the relevant parties can be identified and are classed as habitually resident in the UK.

In certain circumstances, where the paying parent: has a gross a weekly income below £7 per week; is a child; is in prison; is aged 16-17 years old and in receipt of prescribed benefits; is receiving a work based training allowance; is in a care home, hospital or receiving home care; this liability will be nil.

The following publication includes statistics on the child maintenance arrangements of separated families:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/separated-families-population-statistics

Information on the number of parents who are primary carers for children but do not receive child maintenance is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

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