Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what her Department's policy is on registration of the child maintenance debt of a non-resident parent with credit rating agencies.

Where a liability order has been granted for the purposes of pursuing child maintenance arrears, the paying parent is given a 21 day warning period in order to respond and agree to pay.

If the warning period passes and no payment has been received from the paying parent or a payment agreement has not been made, then registration with a Credit Reference Agency will be considered. The decision is discretionary and intended to act as a deterrent to those parents who may otherwise choose to evade paying their maintenance.

The number of liability orders granted is reported in our published statistics and can be on found table 11 of the tables document in the attached link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/child-maintenance-service-august-2013-to-march-2019-experimental