Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the effect on individuals' personal finances of waiting times of up to 12 weeks for the Child Maintenance Service to respond to reports that an ex-partner of a claimant has stopped paying child maintenance.

The Government recognises that the income of many separated parents is being impacted by the public health emergency and some receiving parents may receive less maintenance as a result of a paying parent’s drop in income.

Paying parents are still expected to pay child maintenance throughout this period. Our priority is to maintain the flow of maintenance that is currently being paid, by easing the financial pressure on paying parents and ensuring that we transfer the payments as quickly as possible to receiving parents.

In order to ensure that receiving parents do not lose out in the long run, we will update calculations as soon as possible and collect any unpaid amounts that may have accrued. For the small minority who might be found to be abusing the system at this difficult time they could potentially find themselves subject to the full extent of our enforcement powers once the emergency passes. From July 2020, we will also reopen Case Maintenance action, updating cases with notified changes and restarting arrears pursuit activity.

Measures have been introduced to support both paying and receiving parents, whose income drops as a result of the public health emergency. These include increasing the standard rate of Universal Credit and working tax credit for this year by over £1000 per year, benefiting over 4 million of the most vulnerable households. We have also increased the Local Housing Allowance rates for Universal Credit and Housing Benefit claimants so that it covers the cheapest third of local rents – which is on average £600 in people’s pockets.