Submitted on Saturday 30th January 2021
Rejected on Wednesday 17th February 2021
Current status: Rejected
Rejection code: no-action (see below for details)
Don’t write off child maintenance debt when non resident parent refuses to pay.
The Child Maintenance Service, as a government run service, needs to have more powers to collect maintenance owing by a non resident parent.
Failure to pay the amount calculated by this service, should result in harsher penalties and should not penalise the resident parent and their children.
The current situation allows the non resident parent to continue to fail to pay over a number of years knowing that eventually the debt will be written off and they will not be forced to pay. Some families are highly reliant upon this money being paid towards the upbringing of the children who should remain the responsibility of both parents irrespective of whether they remain together or not. Absent parents should be forced to contribute to show responsibility for their offspring.
You can't sign this petition because it was rejected. But you can still comment on it here at Repetition.me!
The Government e-Petitions Team gave the following reason:
Petitions need to call on the Government or Parliament to take a specific action.
We understand that you are concerned about non-payment of child maintenance, but we're not sure exactly what you'd like the Government or Parliament to do. The Child Maintenance Service does not have a policy of writing off debts when they are not paid, although in 2018 the UK Government announced a new policy to bring the estimated £3.7 billion of child maintenance arrears accumulated under the 1993 and 2003 schemes: commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7776/
We could accept a petition calling for this policy to be reversed, and full repayment of outstanding debts from this period sought.
We have published the following petitions, which you might like to sign:
Tougher penalties for not paying child maintenance: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/562177
3.145.178.240 Thu, 25 Apr 2024 15:46:10 +0100
