GINGERBREAD REPORT ON CHILD MAINTENANCE SERVICE

That this House welcomes the report from the charity Gingerbread, entitled Missing maintenance; notes that when child maintenance goes unpaid by a parent, children lose out; deplores the disastrous record of the Child Support Agency in collecting unpaid child maintenance, which has resulted in almost £4 billion of outstanding arrears; believes that, with nearly half of paying parents in the new child maintenance system owing arrears, the new Child Maintenance Service is already underperforming on its collection of such arrears; and calls on the Government to use the income from collection fees to bring about a substantial improvement in enforcement action over the next three years, with clear annual debt collection targets for both Child Support Agency and Child Maintenance Service debts.