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Written question asked by Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat) on Monday, 29 June 2026, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 2 July 2026 (named day). It was answered by Lucy Rigby (Labour) on Thursday, 2 July 2026 on behalf of the Treasury.

Child Benefit

Question

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many and what percentage of people have had their child benefits incorrectly suspended from (a) Yeovil constituency, (b) Somerset and (c) England in each of the last three years.

Answer

HMRC does not hold information on incorrect suspensions of Child Benefit. This is because, where there is doubt over a customer’s Child Benefit entitlement, HMRC will check eligibility and take appropriate action to safeguard public money. This may involve suspending payment whilst enquiries are ongoing. In cases where eligibility is later confirmed, it does not mean that the suspension was incorrectly applied.

However, HMRC has acknowledged that the way it expanded compliance using international travel data between August and October last year impacted some eligible customers, where upfront checks of UK employment through PAYE were excluded on 23,794 enquiries. It took swift action to address the issues including retrospective PAYE checks and automatic reinstatement of 5,327 payments by the middle of November 2025.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
14178
Session
2026-27
Transferred
Yes
Subjects
Child benefit Disqualification
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk