Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many application fees to the Child Maintenance Service have been refunded after it became clear that the parent with care was a victim of domestic violence in the last 12 months.

Around a third of applications to the Child Maintenance Service benefit from a waiver of the application fee due to domestic violence.

There are only two specific circumstances in which the Department can repay the application fee after payment:

• where a qualifying child dies following the payment of the application fee but before a maintenance calculation is made if, as a result of this, no maintenance calculation is made; and
• where the Secretary of State withdraws a notice to close a case on the 1993 or 2003 schemes.

From March 2016 to February 2017, 48 cases with application fees had the fees repaid on the Child Maintenance Scheme.