Answer from Hansard

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Andrew Western)

The issue of economic abuse through the Child Maintenance Service is a serious one, which this Government are looking to address urgently. I am pleased to say that a response to the “Child Maintenance: Improving the collection and transfer of payments” consultation was published earlier today. We intend to reform the CMS into a single service type, where the CMS collects and transfers all payments. This reform will drastically reduce opportunities for economic abuse throughout the service and make sure that money gets to the children who need it. We estimate that this change alone could lift more than 20,000 children out of poverty.