Children: Maintenance

John Mann
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many parents eligible for maintenance payments via the Child Maintenance Enforcement Commission and its predecessor have received no payment for over (a) three and (b) 10 years.

Helen Goodman
The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission is responsible for the child maintenance system. I have asked the child maintenance commissioner to write to the hon. Member with the information requested and I have seen the response.

Letter from Stephen Geraghty:

In reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the Child Support Agency, the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Child Maintenance Commissioner as the Child Support Agency is now the responsibility of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission.

You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many parents eligible for maintenance payments via the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission and its predecessor have received no payment for over (a) three and (b) 10 years. [292041]

The Commission estimates that at the end of June 2009, of the 1,140,400 cases due to receive at least one child maintenance payment in the past three years, no payment had been received from the non-resident parent in 57,250 (or 5%) of these cases. The Commission is not able to provide an estimate on the number of parents eligible for maintenance payments who have not received any payments for the last 10 years.

Some parents will go to great lengths to avoid fulfilling their financial responsibilities to their children. The Child Support Agency has made significant improvements over the last three years increasing the number of cases receiving maintenance by a third. The new enforcement powers set out in the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 will give the Commission the tools it needs to further increase compliance.

I am sorry on this occasion I could not be more helpful.