Lords Public Services Committee issues call for evidence as it launches new inquiry into Child Maintenance and holds first evidence session
Friday 14 March 2025
The cross-party committee, chaired by Baroness Morris of Yardley, recently published a call for evidence as it launched its inquiry examining child maintenance arrangements in Britain.
These arrangements are required for children under the age of 16 who are living in separated families and can be agreed privately by both parents. Where there is no private maintenance arrangement, the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) can facilitate and if necessary, collect the maintenance payments. The CMS is a government agency that falls under the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).
A backlog of unpaid child maintenance totalling over £650m means that significant numbers of parents and children are missing vital payments. The inquiry will explore the barriers to making child maintenance arrangements through the CMS, why many separated families do not have private arrangements, and consider how CMS could better enforce payment arrangements they have set up.
Read the full call for evidence and find out how to make a submission. The deadline for submission of written evidence is Wednesday 23 April.
The inquiry will hold its first public evidence session on Wednesday 19 March at 11.0am where it will hear from officials from the Department of Work and Pensions. The session will be available to watch live or on demand at Parliament TV or attend in person in Committee Room 4A, Palace of Westminster.
Questions will include:
- Please outline how the Government support separating and separated families to make child maintenance arrangements, and what ongoing support the Child Maintenance Service provides in cases where the CMS makes child maintenance arrangements?
- How does the Child Maintenance Service determine an appropriate rate of child maintenance to pay?
- When someone doesn’t pay their child maintenance, what actions do the CMS take to address this?
- What steps are the Government taking to address the significant increase in the proportion of people with no child maintenance arrangement?
- The Government are consulting on changes to the way the CMS works, including removing the Direct Pay system altogether. What is the rationale for such changes and impact do you expect them to have?