Stephen Timms MP: speeches

Speeches

• 11 Nov 2024 · PIP Application Process · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend raises a very important point. Indeed, she and I worked on an excellent Select Committee report on health assessments for benefits, which provides some very important and valuable recommendations to the Department. We will continue to look at this issue. I am not familiar with the case that she refers to, but I will dig out the details. Clearly, it is vital that the process should be accessible to people with sight impairments or any other impairments. I completely agree with her.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Universal Credit: Assessment · Hansard source

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  The Department has adopted an iterative approach, updating the universal credit system to reflect user needs as they develop. The new Government are committed to reviewing universal credit to make sure that it is doing the job we need it to.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Universal Credit: Assessment · Hansard source

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  As my hon. Friend will know, there have been some very troubling cases of carer’s allowance overpayment. I am not sure whether carer’s allowance is part of the overpayment he describes, but I will be very happy to meet him to discuss what has gone wrong in this case.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Universal Credit: Assessment · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing my attention to that. What he has described sounds very odd indeed, and I will be happy to look at the details if he will let me see them. We are absolutely committed to making sure that universal credit does the job that we need it to, including for people in the situation that his constituent has found herself in.

• 9 Oct 2024 · Discrimination against Disabled People · Hansard source

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  We want a more inclusive society with less discrimination, and our election manifesto committed us to putting the views and voices of disabled people at the heart of all we do. As a first step, we are legislating to deliver equal pay for disabled people, with disability pay gap monitoring for larger employers.

• 9 Oct 2024 · Discrimination against Disabled People · Hansard source

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  I am delighted to congratulate Joseph, and I welcome my hon. Friend’s drawing his achievements to our attention. I spent an inspiring few days at the Paralympics in Paris not long ago. It was partly inspiring because we came second behind only China—ahead of the USA, and ahead of all the other European countries as well. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of this issue. We are going to work with disabled people and their organisations to make sport more accessible and to remove the barriers that are too often in place.

• 9 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Yes, we will. Accessibility is at the heart of the Government’s passenger-focused approach, and with a unified rail network, we will be able to meet accessibility needs more reliably and consistently and plan how best to improve accessibility across the entire network.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I am not familiar with the report to which the hon. Member refers, but we committed in our manifesto to reviewing universal credit, nearly 15 years after it was first launched. The cliff edge issue and others will be among those that we will want to look at in the course of that review.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend asks an extremely good question. The policy of the previous Government was to publish all such commissioned research reports within 12 weeks of receiving them. That policy was complied with until 2018, when Ministers stopped complying with it, so we have had to publish all these reports today. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s announcement is a vital first step in rebuilding the trust in the Department that was so shattered by the culture of secrecy, obfuscation and cover-up by Conservative Ministers.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Vulnerable People: Support into Work · Hansard source

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  We will be saying more and we will provide an update in the forthcoming “Getting Britain Working” White Paper. If the hon. Lady would like to drop me a line about the Special Olympics, I would be happy to look into that as well.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Vulnerable People: Support into Work · Hansard source

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  I very much welcome my hon. Friend’s positive report of the work in her local jobcentre. She highlights a major challenge behind a significant proportion of increased inactivity over the past few years. We will set out our response in the “Getting Britain Working” White Paper, but we are already providing tailored support in partnership with NHS talking therapies and individual placement and support in primary care. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that there is a good deal more to be done.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Vulnerable People: Support into Work · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Lady for her welcome. I am looking forward to a meeting with Sir Robert later on this month, and we will be talking exactly about that matter.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Vulnerable People: Support into Work · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman draws my attention to a concerning development. My view is that we need more support for people with learning disabilities to get into work, not less. If he sends me the details of the concerns he has raised, I will be happy to look into them further.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Vulnerable People: Support into Work · Hansard source

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  We are committed to supporting vulnerable customers into work. At jobcentres, for example, we can identify the support needed and signpost people to courses or organisations to help them overcome barriers. We will be saying more about our proposals in the forthcoming employment White Paper.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance Overpayments · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I agree that we need to support carers properly. We want to get to the bottom of what has gone wrong with these overpayments and why so many people have been caught out. We have been piloting the introduction of a text message service, as I have mentioned, which has involved texting 3,500 claimants to alert them when His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs informs the DWP that they have breached the current earnings limit. We are currently looking at the results, and if they are positive, that will be the first step towards addressing the overpayments problem. We will need to do more, but it will be a good first step.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance Overpayments · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend has written to me about this matter, and I welcome her commitment to making progress. In an excellent piece of work, the former Work and Pensions Committee made a number of recommendations on the earnings rules, and once the new Committee is in place, we shall respond to the former Committee’s proposals.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance Overpayments · Hansard source

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  I very much hope that we can, because the hon. Gentleman is right: there is a good deal of anxiety about these overpayment problems. We hope that the alert service will at least inform people when they run into a problem so that they do not then develop a large overpayment, which has happened all too often in the past, but we also need to look at the other arrangements relating to carer’s allowance in order to provide the reassurance for which the hon. Gentleman has rightly called.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance Overpayments · Hansard source

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  The work of unpaid carers is vital and often heroic, and we are determined to give them the support that they need. We are currently looking at options for tackling the problem of overpayments, including the possible introduction of a text message alert service.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Jobcentre Claimants: Travel Costs · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Performance is reviewed regularly and there are customer satisfaction surveys, but unlike the previous Government, this Government want to publish performance data so that everybody can see what is going on.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Jobcentre Claimants: Travel Costs · Hansard source

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  Provider guidance, which is published on gov.uk, makes clear that contractors on all our employment programmes must reimburse customers’ reasonable travel costs.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Jobcentre Claimants: Travel Costs · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I am not familiar with the arrangements in Northern Ireland, but certainly in the rest of the UK it is very clear that contractors ideally need to pay up-front, buy tickets and give them to the jobseeker before they embark on their journey, or, if not, reimburse them very quickly on production of a receipt.