Stone secures DWP meeting over constituent with £30,000 in child maintenance arrears
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NORTH MP Jamie Stone is seeking action over a child maintenance case in which one of his constituents is said to be owed £30,000.
He has secured a meeting with the UK government's Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to discuss the case along with other issues he has encountered with the child maintenance service when trying to help people affected.
According to the charity One Parent Families Scotland, there was already £335 million in unpaid arrears prior to Covid-19 and the problem is said by another charity to be "getting worse by the day".
Mr Stone, the Liberal Democrat MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, said: “I am taking up this issue because I have a particularly harrowing case in my constituency where someone is owed £30k in child maintenance arrears. This kind of case is not uncommon – I often hear from people across the north in similar situations. Many more are suffering in silence without support.
"It is my duty now to get justice for my constituent, but when meeting with DWP I will see what can be done to make the child maintenance service fit for purpose. The flames of injustice they continue to fan must be put out. Their failures affect families across the north and the entire UK."
Victoria Benson, chief executive of the single parents' charity Gingerbread, said: “It is a child’s legal right to be supported by both parents, and yet the service designed to protect this right is failing the children.
"It simply cannot be right that a government service can continually leave children of single parents in poverty without being held accountable.
"Covid-19 means this problem is getting worse by the day."
She claimed paying parents were being allowed to reduce or withdraw maintenance payment without any proper evidence. "This has already resulted in more single-parent families losing out on maintenance payment which, quite simply, can be the difference between having food on the table or not," she said.
