As someone who is facing court tribunal over correct calculation of CM and who is likely to be pursuing arrears after kids reach 18 do not let complacency stop you from receiving what is “legally” your children’s money. You may not need it now but your circumstances may change. If they agree to right off this debt you loose all chance of ever being able to recover unpaid maintenance
I hope everyone on here is still active because the DWP has already sent their proposals to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in the Lords, twice. And they will soon be debated in the House of Commons...
You MUST contact your MPs about this, NOW!!!
www.thesun.co.uk/news/7215142/theresa-may-child-support-payments-scrap/
JoArcher Fri 14-Sep-18 22:56:37
I proposed a motion to the Women's Equality Party whic was adopted last Sunday...
The Women’s Equality Party notes that the Westminster Government proposes to write-off Historic Child Support Arrears, in order to reduce the cost of maintaining their records.
These arrears have accrued over decades, yet the Enforcement Powers that Parliament gave the Westminster Government over a decade ago have still not been commenced by Secondary Legislation.
Existing Child Support Law prevents the debtee from enforcing the debt through the courts themselves.
The Women’s Equality Party calls upon the Westminster Government to:
1.Pay all Historic Child Support Arrears to debtees directly and in full.
2.Use their existing powers to enforce the debt and reimburse the Tax Payer.
3.Where the debt is a result of a decision by the First Tier Tribunal (Social Entitlement Chamber), give debtees the option to enforce debts through the courts in future.
Furthermore, WE call upon the Government to invest in Public Service Campaigns in order to change the prevailing culture of Child Support Avoidance.
Of the £3.7bn of outstanding debt, £2.5bn is owed to parents – equating to approximately 970,000 cases. Debtees are predominantly women, who may have fallen into debt themselves in order to provide for their children the resources that the ‘Non-Resident Parent’ (NRP) has not.
Some of this debt is over a decade old and yet no interest is applied. For comparison, the rate of interest on Student Loans is up to 6.1% and debts to the government accrue interest at the Statutory Rate of 8%.
The Government admits that they have ‘unreliable data’ for ‘lots’ of parents (see para.17*) and so cannot guarantee that all those affected will be informed.
While the outstanding arrears may appear small, their relative worth to the debtees themselves is much greater and represent years of anguish, even sustained financial abuse at the hands of former partners. Indeed, some perpetrators have been tens of thousands of pounds in debt for decades, with impunity.
The Government’s proposal is an insult to everyone who has shouldered the bulk of the responsibility for their children entirely on their own, and sends an unambiguous message to recalcitrant NRPs that, having strung the process out for years they will now be rewarded and relieved, retrospectively, of all financial responsibility for their children.
This is categorically NOT ‘Shared Parenting’, which is a key tenet of the Women’s Equality Party.