Suffolk MP urges the government to 'get on with' using curfews against child maintenance dodgers
Therese Coffey told the Commons: "We must remember this is cash for the children"
The Government should "get on with" using curfews to crack down on people not making their child maintenance payments, Conservative former Cabinet minister Therese Coffey has said.
The Suffolk Coastal MP urged ministers to reveal when they planned to set out a response to 2022 proposals to introduce a curfew.
She told the Commons: "We must remember this is cash for the children.
"In July (2022) the Government consulted on child maintenance, improving our enforcement powers through the commencement of curfew orders. And we still have not yet had a response to that consultation.
"I would be grateful to hear from the Government when they plan to do so and remind them of the powers that are in place: depriving people of the ability to drive, depriving people a passport.
"This is one simple thing where people have the money, won't cough up the cash, and I think curfew orders - we need to get on with it."
Work and pensions minister Paul Maynard said: "They are complex and interact with numerous Government services.
"Several enforcement initiatives aimed at improving compliance are currently in train. We need to get those in place and assess their effects before we can best see how curfews might fit with them."
Later, SNP MP Peter Grant (Glenrothes) asked ministers to reveal when powers approved by MPs last year, aimed at ensuring domestic abuse victims could receive child maintenance payments without contact from their abuser, would be brought into force.
Mr Grant told the Commons: "Fife Gingerbread, who are based in my constituency, contacted me recently to point out that the Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Act 2023 that was unanimously agreed by this House and got its royal assent at the end of June last year, most of its provisions have still not been brought into force.
"That means that far too many vulnerable people who want to claim from the child maintenance system find it is being used by abusive ex-partners to control their behaviour.
"Why has it taken so long to get this Act put into place?"
Mr Maynard responded: "I can confirm to him that the CMS (Child Maintenance Service) does indeed have a domestic abuse plan, making sure that parents are not placed in danger as a consequence of any suggestion of domestic violence, including having a centralised sort code to limit the risk of parental involvement."