Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many parents who made a request to move from a deduction from earnings order to direct debit subsequently defaulted on their child maintenance payments in each of the last 5 years.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) will do everything it can to address the nonpayment of child maintenance. Where payments have defaulted, we use our enforcement powers fairly and quickly to get cases back into payment.

The Department publishes quarterly Child Maintenance Service (CMS) statistics, with the latest statistics available to the end of December 2024 here. Table 4 contains information on the amount of child maintenance that Paying parents have paid, and are expected to pay, each quarter.

Information on the method of payments used by Paying Parents and Collect and Pay compliance can be found on Stat Xplore

The full information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.