The Westminster lensArchive · Written questions · 16 tabled · 13 answered

Written questions by Rushworth.

Every parliamentary written question tabled by Sam Rushworth this session, with the full answer and department. Back to the MP page.

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Department:All (16)Ministry of Defence (4)Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (3)Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (2)Treasury (2)Department for Work and Pensions (2)Department for Education (1)Northern Ireland Office (1)Department for Business and Trade (1)

Showing 1–2 of 2 · Department for Work and Pensions

23 Feb 2026·Department for Work and Pensions·Answered

Asked

How many and what proportion of payments were made through the Child Maintenance Service collect and pay system in each of the last three years.

The Department regularly publishes Child Maintenance Service official statistics, with the latest statistics available to September 2025, and detailed quarterly statistics on the number of CMS Arrangements available on Stat-Xplore.The table CMS Arrangement 1: Service Type and Paying Status by Quarter shows the number of CMS arrangements by service type for each quarter from March 2016 to September 2025. The table provides figures for the number of Collect & Pay arrangements for which the Paying Parent paid some child maintenance during the quarter, and those where no payment was made.Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required.

23 Feb 2026·Department for Work and Pensions·Answered

Asked

How many paying parents were newly recorded as being in arrears by the Child Maintenance Service in each of the last 24 months.

The information requested is not readily available and providing it would incur disproportionate cost. The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) will do everything within its powers to make sure parents comply. Where parents fail to take responsibility for paying for their children, the Service will not hesitate to use the range of enforcement powers available to collect maintenance, combining robust negotiation activity with the highly effective use of its extensive range of Enforcement Powers. CMS has a wide range of strong enforcement powers including deductions from earnings orders, removal of driving licences, disqualification from holding a passport, and committal to prison. The CMS also introduced powers to enable the deduction of child maintenance directly from a wider range of accounts, including certain joint and business accounts, and target complex earners via a calculation of notional income based on assets. The Service is committed to using these powers fairly and in the best interests of children and separated families.

Sources

SourceUK Parliament Members API

MethodQuestion and answer text as published. Question preamble (“To ask the…”) trimmed for readability; answers shown in full.