Thousands of Child Benefit claimants have been left without payments this morning, HMRC has confirmed.

The issues are a result of a problem with the system that sends the cash directly into claimants’ bank accounts.

The benefit, claimed by more than 7 million households across the UK, is usually paid every four weeks on a Monday or a Tuesday.

Families with one child receive £1,331 per year, and they can also receive £881 per year for each additional child they have after that.

There is no limit to how many children families can claim Child Benefits for.

However, many families were left without expected payments this morning because of a problem in the HMRC system.

A HMRC spokesman said: “We are aware some customers' child benefit payments have not arrived and we are working to resolve the issue."

The issue attracted the attention of Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis, who ran a poll on his X account to see how many people had been affected.

He said: “After my Twitter poll earlier which indicates 80% of those expecting child benefit payments this morning haven't got them, we contacted HMRC. It's told us...

“30% of people who should have been paid today haven’t been (possible, the poll is self selecting so those who haven't got are more likely to respond), this still likely means huge numbers of people.

“HMRC doesn’t have an exact cause or timeframe on fixing the problem to share at this stage! Though it is working on it urgently.

“It requests people DON'T call it right now about this (it won't help till they sort. We'll update when we hear more).

“Once the issue has been fixed, if people are out of pocket, they should complain to HMRC for redress (so I'd suggests this means if you've had a charge as a payment bounced due to no Child Benefit, note it down and then later try asking it to cover that charge).”