LabourEast Ham

Stephen Timms MP: speeches

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Speeches

9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support for this review. He mentions being contacted by 300 of his constituents; as I mentioned, our call for evidence received 38,000 responses, which I was very pleased about. We are doing further work, too. At the moment, Workshops in a Box are being carried out around the country to ensure that we also hear from people who may not be up for or willing to submit a formal reply to a call for evidence. The objective that the hon. Gentleman sets out is absolutely right: I do not think it is necessary for the application process for this benefit to have the hostile and adversarial characteristics of the current one, and we are determined to put that right.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I think we have an appointment in the diary to talk about the issues that he has raised about his constituency, and his constituent who has drawn his attention to them. My hon. Friend is right that, at present, the system does not work properly for disabled people, and it does not give taxpayers confidence that the funding is being well used. We are determined to turn things around and to be fair to both, and I am grateful for his support for the efforts we are making.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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We are doing quite a lot of work in the Department specifically on assistive technology. In fact, the Secretary of State was at a roundtable recently with representatives of the tech industry. One problem is that the technology is moving on rapidly but a lot of people do not know about it. People are not even aware of the technology that is already in our phones and available without any extra charge. We are doing quite a lot of work on that at the moment. I hope we will, later this year, be able to issue a call for evidence on how to do a better job on exactly the areas my right hon. Friend highlights.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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On his final point, as my hon. Friend knows, that proposal was consulted on in the Green Paper last year, and we are looking at that. I think he makes a very good point. I can assure him that we are going to be working across Government on exactly the concerns that he raises.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman has set out some trenchant criticisms of the system that his party set up and left behind, and the question in everybody’s mind is: why did the Conservatives not do anything about it? They had 14 years, and they left the problems to which he has referred. He should be apologising to the House for the system that the party he represents left behind. The biggest ever rise in the welfare bill was in their last year in government. We previously heard that the Conservative party has a plan for £23 billion of welfare cuts, although nobody has any idea at all what those cuts will be. The hon. Gentleman did not refer to that figure in his statement, so I am not quite sure whether the Conservatives now have a plan. He said that the Conservatives will review PIP; I welcome his belated recognition of the value of a review, but I do not know whether that means that they do not have a plan any more, or that they are throwing away the plan until they have carried out their review. The hon. Gentleman has rightly expressed concern about the rising costs of the system—the public are rightly concerned about that—and particularly about the steep increase in the number of young people who are claiming, but we have set up work to address that problem. His party abandoned the growing number of young people applying for benefits; we will not do so. We are changing the question that the system is asking, and we are providing employment support and the youth guarantee to give young people the chance of a decent future. The hon. Gentleman complained about the small number of face-to-face assessments, but that is what was left behind by the previous Government. Understandably, the system moved away from face-to-face assessments during the pandemic, but they were never brought back; that is the problem. We are increasing the proportion of face-to-face assessments, which is an important and positive step. When we were upstairs debating a measure to facilitate greater face-to-face assessment, another shadow Minister said that it was a “nice to have”, rather than essential. We think that face-to-face assessments are key to rebuilding trust in the system, and that is why we are making the changes we are. The system that the Conservatives left behind did not work for disabled people, and did not work for taxpayers. This review will bring forward proposals to fix the problems that they created.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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Our objective must be both the things that the hon. Lady refers to. We need a system that works well for disabled people and that helps to remove unnecessary barriers that too often hold them back, but we also need to create a system that has the confidence of taxpayers, which is the objective of our review. We are certainly very interested in what has been happening in Scotland, and in the work of Social Security Scotland. At one of our forthcoming expert evidence sessions, we will hear from Edel Harris, who, as the hon. Lady knows, has recently undertaken a review of the adult disability payment in Scotland. We are very keen to monitor what has happened there.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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I can give my hon. Friend exactly the assurance that she seeks: this will be a properly and carefully considered piece of work. She is absolutely right that PIP can be claimed by people who are in work or out of work. When we were having the debates last summer, a lot of people made the point that PIP is what enables them to go to work; without it, they would not be able to get to work. The question that arises in the terms of reference is: what can we do to ensure that in future PIP does a better job of removing the barriers that have stopped people working in the past? We want to bring that about.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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The focus of the review is very tightly on PIP itself. However, as I touched on earlier, I do think that the Department will want to, and will, learn lessons from the success of this approach to date, which I hope will be fully borne out in the final report that we submit to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in the autumn. I think that will be a mechanism for changing the culture in the Department and the way that it and, I hope, the wider Government work.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend raises an extremely important point, which is at the heart of the Keep Britain Working review that Sir Charlie Mayfield is leading at the moment. He produced his report in November, which was directly about what more employers can do to ensure that their workplaces are accessible to disabled people, so that people who run into a health problem or disability in the course of their work do not automatically have to leave work, as too often happens. The reasons for that concern are exactly the ones that my hon. Friend raises: huge talent is too often being wasted. I am pleased that after Sir Charlie’s report was completed, he started working with 75 vanguard employers to develop the ideas in the report. I understand that the number is now up to about 250; there is a lot of employer enthusiasm here because they recognise how important it is. Quite often, the problem is that employers are not sure what to do in a difficult situation when somebody has a health problem. That review will take us a long way forward on exactly the concerns that my hon. Friend raises.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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I think we can take the hon. Member’s question as a tacit recognition that in 14 years the previous Government should have done something to fix these problems. The steering group is clear that the provision of cash to meet the additional costs of disability is vital. We will not be moving away from the importance of that, but I think there is a question about whether the process can also point people towards help that may be valuable to them in addition to, or in some cases perhaps instead of, a cash payment. There is help and support that people need, and I think the process could help to point people to that. One problem people have had to contend with is the terrible NHS waiting lists, which thankfully are now being reduced, but the system may be able to point people to the right place in the health service. We are looking at all those issues and we will come back with recommendations in our final report.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the importance of language. This is a topic that the organisation Turn2us has been thinking about lately. One of the things that I am pleased about is that my job title is Minister for Social Security. I think that I am the first Minister to have “Social Security” in their job title since the abolition of the old Department of Social Security at the end of the 1990s. I think “social security” is a good term, and this review is about delivering that.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support for this review, and for his tribute to those who have put a great deal of work into it already, and who will be putting in a lot more between now and the autumn. The hon. Gentleman is right to make the points that the system is not working well for disabled people at the moment, and that its costs are rising rapidly in a way that is of concern to many, including, rightly, taxpayers. He is right to highlight that this benefit, which is supposed to contribute to independence and participation, too often presents a barrier to those things, because so many people are worried that if they undertake an activity, the Department for Work and Pensions will say, when they get reassessed, “Oh, so you didn’t need your benefit after all, then,” and take it away. There is striking evidence of the scale of the concern about going to work, or taking part in exercise or sport. The current system presents significant barriers, and we want to address those. There are, absolutely, concerns about the rising costs, which we also need to address. All those factors will be in the minds of the steering group as we progress with the review, ahead of our final report in autumn. The steering group, as I mentioned, is made up almost entirely of disabled people. The concern about the financial sustainability of this benefit is of great concern to them as well, because if it is deemed to be not financially sustainable then there is a risk to its future. We need the support to be present for the long term for the large number of people for whom it is vital.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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I am certainly keen to avoid stigmatising anybody. If my right hon. Friend looks at the interim report, he will see that there is quite a lot of evidence specifically on that point. It is very important that that evidence is properly sifted and assessed in the course of our work, and we will do that. We want to remove barriers, because too often young people in particular have started to claim benefits and then the system has abandoned them, which is neither in their interests nor consistent with their aspirations. It is not in the interests of the Government or society, either. We need to support young people to be able to participate in work and in other things by removing the barriers that have stopped them doing that in the past, and that is what we are determined to do.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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With permission, I would like to make a statement on the Timms review of the personal independence payment—to make it fair and fit for the future, both for the disabled people who need it and for the taxpayer. Today, the Government are publishing an interim report on behalf of the review’s steering group. Copies will be placed in the Library in both Houses. We are committed to openness and transparency, so it sets out the evidence gathered so far and the emerging themes. It will inform the recommendations that will now be developed for the final report, which is to be submitted to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions this autumn. PIP was introduced more than a decade ago, but the benefit has never been fully reviewed. Since 2013, the number of people reporting a disability has increased significantly; patterns of disability and ill health have changed; and the workplace and wider society have evolved. We have seen a sharp rise in disability and long-term health conditions, including in mental ill health among younger people. The number of people receiving PIP has risen considerably and is forecast to continue growing. Against that backdrop, we are taking a fresh look at whether a system introduced 13 years ago still reflects the realities of modern life, supports independent living and is sustainable for the long term. The Timms review is the first time that the UK Government have co-produced reforms on this scale. Our aim has been to have a review that is not just about disabled people, but shaped with disabled people. That means working together with disabled people and drawing on their lived experience. The review is led by three co-chairs—me, Sharon Brennan and Dr Clenton Farquharson—and a steering group of 12 people we have recruited, almost all of whom have lived experience of disability or long-term ill health. The group represents a range of impairments, as well as different parts of the country. No single group can represent the full range of experiences of disability, however, so we have set up a wide programme of engagement of varied, accessible opportunities in which people with differing lived and learned experiences can get involved. The interim report brings together the evidence we have heard so far. It includes a summary of findings from the call for evidence, which received over 38,000 responses, and an evidence pack provided by my Department to the steering group as a starting point for further evidence gathering. It is the strongest evidence base ever assembled on PIP, on the assessment process and on the experiences of those who rely on the payment. The interim report presents a clear message from the steering group: PIP is hugely valued for managing the additional costs of disability, but its current design and delivery are no longer fit for purpose. The assessment for PIP is often described as stressful and dehumanising, and over 90% of those responding to the call for evidence reported that their experience of the PIP assessment was negative. PIP provides a lifeline for many, but the fear of losing it on reassessment can create serious barriers to participation in work, community life and other everyday activities. That is the direct opposite of the intention, which has always been to support independence and participation. The report also highlights that the benefit has not kept up with wider changes since PIP was introduced. This work will sit alongside the Milburn review into young people and work, which is looking at the factors behind rising economic inactivity among young people and how the Government can better support participation, opportunity and independence. The interim report sets out the next steps for the review. It outlines the evidence and engagement programme over the coming months, and how the review will test emerging thinking and develop recommendations that reflect the steering group’s ambitions for radical reform, and that are credible, deliverable and grounded in experience. We are not looking for quick fixes here. Reform needs to be guided by the evidence, if we are to address the underlying problems in the system and deliver lasting change. The Government are committed to a fairer system that has the trust of both the public and the people who rely on it. We have introduced the recording of health assessments by default, and we are substantially increasing the proportion of face-to-face assessments to 30%, which reverses the sharp decline under the previous Government and helps to improve trust, accuracy and confidence in the assessments. Our objective is to reform the system so that it works better for disabled people, while ensuring that it is sustainable for the long term, and that the support will be there for future generations who need it. The review has been tasked with developing recommendations that can be delivered within the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast for future PIP spending. I thank everybody who has contributed time, evidence and expertise so far. I thank the steering group, including my fellow co-chairs, Sharon Brennan and Dr Clenton Farquharson, for their support, commitment and determination. Crucially, I also thank the very large number of disabled people who have shared their experiences to help shape this work. The Government are committed to helping to remove the unnecessary barriers that disabled people too often face. This groundbreaking review is only part of that work, but it is an important part. We want to support disabled people in playing as full a part in society as possible. I commend this statement to the House.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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I agree that rehabilitation is very important. Perhaps I should refer my hon. Friend’s point to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who I know will be very interested in it as well. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that when the health service is doing the job that we all want it to do, there will be less of a need to call on PIP, because people’s needs will be dealt with by the health service. I will certainly pass on the important point that he has raised.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her help in the discussions and her continuing interest in the review. Criticisms of the way that the current assessment process handles fluctuating conditions are probably the most frequently aired criticism of how the system works at the moment, and it is important that we come up with something that does that job well. We have talked to a lot to people with Parkinson’s, for example, and yesterday my two co-chairs and I were at the Multiple Sclerosis Society. The need to do the job well for people with fluctuating and degenerative conditions is at the centre of our concern, and I am hopeful that we will be able to do the good job that my hon. Friend wants us to do.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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I am grateful to organisations like those that my hon. Friend mentioned—the Trussell Trust and Disability Rights UK—for their support for the interim report. I assure my hon. Friend that the final report will be properly co-produced. It will be led by the steering group that I have referred to, and there is going to be a lot of engagement after the summer around our initial thinking on conclusions, which we will draw up over the summer. I can give my hon. Friend the assurance that people will be able to be confident in the conclusions we eventually reach.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend raises an important and interesting point. Yes, I hope that we will be able to come up with a proposal that will entail greater personalisation. At the moment, for example, the number of different rates of benefit paid out is not very many—it is quite a lumpy system. I think there is a question to be asked about whether something more personalised could do a better job. My hon. Friend makes an important point.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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The key first step is to complete this review in co-production with disabled people and disabled people’s organisations, and we will be doing that. Then I think it is a question of people seeing what the new system will be and observing in due course how it works. I hope that in that way we can rebuild trust and confidence in the system on the part of both disabled people and taxpayers—recognising the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) that there is a big overlap between those two categories.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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It is certainly our objective that the dehumanising aspects of the current system—he describes an example very well—should not be a feature of the future system. That is the clear aim of this review. The case to which he refers is not unusual, and many hon. Members will have similar examples from their own constituencies. The fact that we are now recording assessments by default could help us to find out why that assessment went so badly wrong. I really hope that we can improve things and rebuild confidence among disabled people and taxpayers that the system is doing the job we need it to do.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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Yes, I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. I pay tribute to her work as the chair of the APPG on disability, and I am grateful to her for her welcome to us the other week. She is absolutely right. I very much hope that people with sight impairments and others looking at the review will feel that the Government have listened to the points that have been made for a long time. I assure her that co-production will be at the heart of the rest of the work as well. It was, of course, a decision of this House that the review should be co-produced. We have worked very hard to ensure that we are properly co-producing it. I think we are gaining the benefits of that approach and that the outcome from this exercise will be significantly better because it is a co-produced review.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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I am very pleased to be able to pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her amendment. As she rightly says, that was what took us down the road of co-production, which I think has been a very fruitful avenue for the review. Central Government have certainly not done co-production on this scale before—I am not sure that we have done co-production at all in the past—but we are undertaking this review in a thoroughly co-produced way. It has been a very positive experience, including for the Department for Work and Pensions, and we will want to learn the lessons for future work. One thing that we will be doing is evaluating this review, so that those lessons can be properly documented and taken account of in the future. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we need to stay in touch with Sir Charlie Mayfield, who leads the Keep Britain Working review, and Alan Milburn, whose work I have referred to. I spoke to Alan the other day, and we will ensure that all this work is taken together. I am pleased that both Alan and Sir Charlie Mayfield have been talking to disabled people’s organisations to contribute to their work, and I know that will continue.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his invitation. If he would like to drop me a line, I will see how my diary is looking in the next couple of months.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend makes a very important point, and she is absolutely right. It has certainly been very clear in our review that there is concern among disabled people about some of the misinformation that she refers to. We want to ensure that correct and clear information is provided to people, and that there is clarity on the eligibility criteria for PIP and the assessment process. I hope that is going to help, but I think there will need to be other efforts, and we will work with disabled people’s organisations and disability charities to significantly improve the position.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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We certainly do not want to let any opportunities from the review pass; it is a one-off groundbreaking review, and we want to make the most of it. This morning, I had a good conversation with the new Minister in Wales, and we have agreed that we will work closely together. It is important that voices from Wales are properly heard in the review. A member of our steering group is a former board member of Disability Wales, and I want to make the most of the expertise and experience from Wales in the course of the work.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is right that we need to ensure that the NHS is delivering on all aspects of its work. There is a big problem with long delays and backlogs in the Access to Work scheme. We have recently announced the recruitment of an additional 480 people, which means that the number of people working on Access to Work applications will have more than doubled since the general election. We are confident that that will enable us to eradicate the backlog for Access to Work by September of next year. My hon. Friend is right that all those services need to work well and support people together. That is our aim.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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The right hon. Gentleman is right about the degree of stress involved in the process. I spoke to somebody at a roundtable in Northern Ireland who told me she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the course of her working life, which came as a terrible shock and was a traumatic experience. A few years later, her condition had deteriorated and she had to apply for PIP; she said that the experience of applying was as traumatising as the original diagnosis. The effects that people have suffered are very serious. The terms of reference for the review require us to stay within the currently projected OBR spending on PIP. There is not a cash limit, but one can project what the spending is going to be. The steering group is constrained to stick within currently predicted spending. I think that there may well be reductions, because if we do all the things that we have been talking about, we can do a better job for both disabled people and the taxpayers whose taxes are paying for the system.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. This benefit is there to contribute to the additional costs of disability. Too often, what has happened—my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) just gave us an example—is that people have applied, the outcome has been wrong, and there has been a long, drawn-out process involving an appeal to get to the right answer. I hope that we will be able to develop an assessment that much more frequently comes up with the right answer the first time round, and that recognises where somebody has additional costs as a result of cancer and is therefore eligible for PIP. We will be talking to representatives of people with cancer, including young people, as part of our work, and I hope we will be able to come forward with recommendations that deal with the hon. Gentleman’s concerns.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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Yes, I shall look out for the right hon. Gentleman’s letter and I hope he will receive a reply in short order. He is right that the system needs to work well for people to be confident in it. One thing he may welcome is that we have just started recording by default the assessments for PIP—the focus in the review is on PIP specifically—partly so that when something does go badly wrong, and his constituent’s case may well be an example of that, we can look back at what happened in the assessment and ensure that that mistake does not happen again.
9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source
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Yes, they will. The co-production approach that we have taken so far will be the approach that we take throughout the review. Over the summer, we will be formulating our initial thoughts about conclusions and recommendations and then, in September or October, we will be discussing them with disabled people and disabled people’s organisations and we will hold events in different parts of the country to ensure that it is disabled people who are shaping the final conclusions that we bring forward.
6 Jul 2026 · Employment and Training · Hansard source
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I am grateful to all those who have spoken in the debate for the thoughtful scrutiny they have given to this instrument, and I am grateful for the support expressed by the hon. Members for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) and for Torbay (Steve Darling) and my hon. Friends the Members for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) and for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner). What I think the debate has effectively underlined is just how important the work of the ECITB is and the scale of the challenge that faces one of our most economically vital industries, which has a core workforce of 90,000 people and is responsible for £33 billion in annual output. The importance of that industry has been well reflected in the contributions to this debate. It is clear that the engineering and construction industry cannot meet its skills demands in the coming decade without a stable, collective system of investment in training. The evidence is consistent that market forces on their own will not deliver the pipeline of skilled workers that the industry urgently needs. The ECITB levy is the mechanism that enables the collective benefit for the focused skills strategy for this industry. It ensures that employers can access support for training and share the benefits of a skilled, competent and resilient workforce. It also opens up opportunities. It helps apprentices and other new entrants to complete high-quality training, and it helps existing workers to reskill or upskill to progress their careers. The hon. Member for South West Devon asked what the Government are doing to support the industry more widely with skills. Substantial Government investment is being deployed to that effect as part of wider reforms to help employers respond to current and future workforce needs. This includes an additional £1 billion of investment to help deliver some 50,000 more apprenticeship opportunities over the next few years, alongside increased flexibility through the new growth and skills levy and sector-specific skills packages in engineering and construction worth over £800 million. The hon. Lady will know of the targeted incentives for employers, including payments of up to £2,000 for taking on foundation apprentices, which will help more young people to enter skilled careers. The continued investment that we are making in skills bootcamps and increasingly devolved approaches through mayoral strategic authorities are enabling local areas to respond more effectively to local employer demand and skills shortages. Together with support from the ECITB, the measures certainly will strengthen the pipeline of skills, and I agree with the hon. Lady about how important that is. The hon. Lady cited the figure from 2024 that £28 million was invested by the ECITB in training grants and new entrant programmes. That went up to £32.6 million last year. We are expecting continuing increases, and we recognise the importance of being able to fulfil the growing demand that we are seeing. My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) quite rightly reflected how important these measures are for Portsmouth, and she asked for engagement with the all-party parliamentary group. I will pass on that request to the Minister for Transformation, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western), who I am sure will be very pleased to do that. To the questions from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner), I am afraid that I am not in a position to shed any light on the timing of the decision following the recent consultation. I will, though, pass on his suggestion that trade union representation should be considered when the reorganisation is being reflected on. The shadow Minister asked me a question about the proportion of new entrants. I think she was asking about those who are still in the industry 12 months on. That is not a figure that I have to hand but I will, if I may, drop her a line, if I can get the information to answer her question. The debate has reminded us just how important supporting the needs of small businesses is, ensuring maximum impact and value for money from employers’ levy contributions, and I think that the order gives reassurance on all those points. It maintains support for the engineering construction industry by minimising burdens on employers, holding steady levy rates and protecting smaller firms by maintaining exemption thresholds. Regardless of any future decisions needed to future-proof its support, the industry cannot afford a gap in funding now, and approving this order provides continuity, stability and confidence for engineering construction employers across England, Scotland and Wales. I am grateful for the support this measure has received in the debate, and for all those reasons I urge the House to support it. Question put and agreed to .
6 Jul 2026 · Employment and Training · Hansard source
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I beg to move, That the draft Industrial Training Levy (Engineering Construction Industry Training Board) Order 2026, which was laid before this House on 1 June, be approved. In my view, the provisions in this statutory instrument are compatible with the European convention on human rights. The statutory purpose of the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board is to make better provision for training throughout the engineering construction industry in England, Scotland and Wales. Engineering construction is critical to the Government’s wider ambitions for economic growth, clean energy and energy security. The industry provides the skilled workforce to build, maintain and operate major energy, manufacturing and industrial infrastructure across the country. The continued value of the ECITB and the Construction Industry Training Board was confirmed by a 2023 independent review, which found that a statutory levy remains the most effective model for industry-wide investment in training, and is needed to address persistent structural workforce challenges within the industries covered by the industry training boards. This order gives effect to the ECITB’s levy proposals for 2026, 2027 and 2028. The levy remains the board’s primary source of funding, and the order is required for the board to raise mandatory assessments on employers that are in scope. It continues to receive strong support from employers: more than 85% of levy-paying employers supported the levy proposals, representing nearly 98% of total levy value—well above the statutory threshold of more than 50% support required from industry. A 12-week Government consultation has just closed on a proposal to bring the two ITBs together into a single, unified body to support the combined skills needs of the engineering construction and construction sectors. The Government are now carefully considering the views expressed before making decisions on reforms that may be needed to ensure that the system delivers the support that employers need. I cannot prejudge the outcome but, in order to maintain the ECITB for support for employers, we need this levy order. If the Government chose to proceed with the proposed reform, the earliest that a single body could be in place would be the spring of 2028. If reform required a new ITB levy order, it would come to the House through the usual parliamentary process. I thank the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments for its detailed review of this levy order. The order retains levy assessment rates from the Industrial Training Levy (Engineering Construction Industry Training Board) Order 2023 and retains the exemption threshold to protect small businesses and microbusinesses that are still eligible for ECITB grants and support. An estimated £137.9 million will be raised in levy between 2026 and 2028. It will be invested in meeting the skills needs of the engineering construction industry. It will fund programmes to widen participation, raise skill levels, increase opportunity and maintain occupational standards for the industry. It includes targeted grant support for employers to develop the skills pipeline in engineering construction. Since 2023, more than 5,000 apprenticeship starts have been supported through ECITB employer funding, including electrical, mechanical and nuclear-specific apprenticeships. That support includes direct grants for employers, travel and accommodation costs, and costs of additional qualifications that are required. The funding raised by the ECITB levy directly underpins broader economic priorities. More than 90,000 people are employed in the leviable workforce, contributing an estimated £33 billion in gross value added, which rises to £100 billion when we include the wider sectors serviced by the engineering construction industry. However, the industry faces big, long-standing challenges in recruiting and retaining a skilled workforce, which makes voluntary investment in training harder to secure. Only a statutory levy can guarantee that the skills that industry urgently needs will be provided at the scale required. If this order is not approved, the ECITB will be unable to collect the levy in 2026. That would hit apprenticeships and other vital industry qualifications, employer support programmes, training standards and the future capabilities of one of our most economically significant sectors. It is estimated that the UK needs an additional 40,000 engineering construction workers, and this order will play an important part in supporting major infrastructure projects nationwide. In addition to industry support, the proposals before the House today have received the full support of the devolved Governments of Scotland and Wales. They recognise, as we do, that the ability of the ECITB to raise and invest levy income is vital to ensuring that employers across all three nations can access the engineering construction skills that they need. I commend the order to the House.
29 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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Together with disabled people, we are co-producing a review of PIP to ensure that it is fair and fit for the future. The review’s terms of reference reflect the view of successive Governments that PIP should be a non-means-tested cash benefit for people both in and out of work, because anybody can incur additional costs as a result of long-term ill health or disability.
29 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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If the care leavers are PIP recipients —I think that is probably the case in the example my hon. Friend has given—we are certainly considering that point. If this issue is one that she thinks we need to reflect on in the review, I would be keen to hear about such experiences.
29 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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As the hon. Member knows, we are working through the cases of those who were required to repay an overpayment over recent years. I am receiving an update every week on the number of cases that have been gone through and the number of people who have had an overpayment reduced or cancelled, and I would be happy to give the hon. Member further information about the progress of that work.
29 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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I can assure the hon. Member that my Department is working very closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to look at what we need to do between us to address the problem of homelessness. I note the point she raises, which is one of the points for discussion.
29 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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There is a limit on how far back applications can be backdated, but if the hon. Gentleman would like to drop me a line with the details, I will make sure that we have a good look at the case he raises.
29 Jun 2026 · Benefit Cap · Hansard source
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Being in work is the best way to avoid poverty. The benefit cap gives a modest but significant incentive to start work and then to progress in work. Some people cannot work, so the cap does not apply to people out of work on disability or caring benefits, but for others it remains in place.
29 Jun 2026 · Benefit Cap · Hansard source
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The hon. Member is right that the scrapping of the two-child limit is the key measure and will lead to 450,000 children moving out of poverty. Other measures in our child poverty strategy that we published last year will increase that number by another 100,000. That is going to be very welcome progress in Scotland as well as in the rest of the UK, and we will be keeping policies under review.
29 Jun 2026 · Benefit Cap · Hansard source
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We will certainly keep the policy under review, but at the moment too many people are in poverty through being out of work, and the cap does help by increasing the incentive to work. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the scrapping of the two-child limit—2 million children will gain overall from that. There are 50,000 capped households who will not see a gain, but a large number will. One other point I should make is that childcare support within universal credit is not affected by the cap, so that is of further help.
29 Jun 2026 · Benefit Cap · Hansard source
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If there is a plan, I would be very interested to see it. We certainly have not seen any details of it. The hon. Member’s comments are a further example of her expressing dissatisfaction with the system left behind by her Government after 14 years. We are reforming the system and making sure it is doing the job we need it to do, and we will carry on with that programme of reform.
29 Jun 2026 · Universal Credit: Care Leavers · Hansard source
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I would be delighted to have that conversation. I speak regularly to the Minister in Northern Ireland about matters in my portfolio, and I would be happy to cover this matter in our next conversation.
29 Jun 2026 · Universal Credit: Care Leavers · Hansard source
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We have been reminded already this afternoon of the experiences of Fatima Whitbread. Work is under way across Government to give care leavers access to the skills and wider support for sustained employment and career progression. Lower universal credit rates for younger claimants strengthen work incentives and encourage increased earnings over time.
29 Jun 2026 · Universal Credit: Care Leavers · Hansard source
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It is very important that we do not weaken the incentives for care leavers to start work and to progress once they are in work. At the moment, 40% of young care leavers are not in employment, education or training. That is a horrific statistic, so our response is to provide tailored Jobcentre Plus support. We also have the new youth jobs grant of £3,000, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has referred to, which will be available from tomorrow. Care leavers under the age of 25 are eligible for the one-bedroom local housing allowance rate, rather than the shared accommodation rate, so there is a financial benefit there, but our focus is rightly on support into work.
24 Jun 2026 · Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance (Decisions and Appeals) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 (SI, 2026, No.457) · Hansard source
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There certainly has been data along those lines; I think it was data along those lines that made the previous Government think that they need not start face-to-face assessments again. I agree with the hon. Gentleman: to build confidence in the system, not least on the part of the people being assessed—I was speaking to somebody yesterday who said, “I wish that I’d had a face-to-face assessment”—and to make sure that the correct decisions are being made, we do need face-to-face assessments. By the time of the general election, only about 7% of work capability assessments and PIP assessments were being carried out face to face. We want to do a great deal better than that. It was not just that the resources for face-to-face assessments were not provided in the assessment contracts, although that was certainly part of the issue; the other factor was that the previous Government walked away from large amounts of the assessment estate so there were no longer enough places where face-to-face assessments could be carried out. That is a pretty fundamental problem. The hon. Member for South West Devon spoke about la-la land, but frankly, that is where the Government who she supported left us. We are therefore mounting a major rebuilding task to regain the capacity for face-to-face assessments that the last Government threw away, because our view is that these assessments should be done properly. We have started to rebuild the capacity that the previous Government threw away. We have increased the proportion of work capability assessments and PIP assessments carried out face to face, and we are on our way to achieving our target that at least 30% of both will be face to face. To achieve that, we need additional assessment resource; this measure is a key step in enabling us to obtain that.
24 Jun 2026 · Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance (Decisions and Appeals) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 (SI, 2026, No.457) · Hansard source
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The hon. Lady makes an important point. Will she clarify her party’s position? Does the Conservative party think that more than 7% of assessments ought to be carried out face to face, or is it not really bothered about whether they are carried out face to face or over the phone?
24 Jun 2026 · Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance (Decisions and Appeals) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 (SI, 2026, No.457) · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have not yet got to that bit in my list, but I am coming to it—I am looking forward to that part of my speech. The Conservative party is telling us that it would maintain its failed approach, with hardly any assessments being carried out face to face. That does at least have the benefit of consistency, I suppose, but we do not think it is good enough, and we will make the changes necessary to do far better. As my hon. Friend correctly highlighted, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, this change that we have announced will reduce benefits spending by almost £2 billion—£1.9 billion—over five years. We inherited an assessment system that was not equipped to do the job. The previous Government agreed contractual limits that meant at most 20% of assessments would be face to face. That was written into the contracts they signed, but there was not nearly enough capacity even to meet that level. We are having to fix a broken system, and we are making good progress, with the measure we are debating being an important step. The purpose of this straightforward change is to provide the Secretary of State the power to extend personal independence payment awards in a limited set of circumstances, where it is deemed necessary to do so to safeguard the efficient administration of benefits. Before the amendment, a decision to extend an award of PIP required either a new claim for PIP, evidence of an error or mistake in the first decision, evidence that the claimant’s circumstances had changed, or the completion of a report by a healthcare professional appointed by the Secretary of State. In many cases, that would involve a claimant undergoing an assessment. Where such a decision could not be taken before an award expired, claimants would cease to be entitled to PIP until a further decision was completed. They would remain so until a further decision on entitlement could be made. The amendment grants a specific discretion, making it possible to extend only the length of an award, and only where doing so is necessary for the administration of the benefit. As well as allowing the more efficient use of assessment resources, the discretion protects vulnerable claimants who would risk losing entitlement to PIP if, as in the pandemic, circumstances threatened to limit the state’s capacity to administer it. We are ensuring that the Department can lawfully maintain benefits payments to the most vulnerable people. The new power will be used initially to increase the length of existing awards in line with the policy on award lengths for new awards, for which the Secretary of State already has the power. Existing claimants’ awards will be extended so that most first-time awards for those over 25 will be reviewed after three years, and most subsequent awards will be reviewed after five. Only awards deemed to be appropriate for those durations will be extended. The Committee may well be interested to know that the average annual increase in the PIP caseload has slowed under this Government: it fell from an increase of about 13% a year in 2019-20 to 2024-25, to a forecast average of about 7% a year over the subsequent five years. The hon. Member for Horsham made a point about the Social Security Advisory Committee. I think he said that the committee had not looked at this; that is not correct—the committee has looked at it. It looks at all the regulatory changes that we propose, and it does a very good job. It plays an important role, and we welcome its scrutiny. As the hon. Gentleman said, the committee asked questions, and we were happy to set out the purpose of the regulations and the reasons for them. The committee accepted the information that we provided, and it chose not to take the regulations on formal reference. I think the hon. Gentleman can be reassured about the committee’s view of this change. I am grateful for the points that have been made and the opportunity for scrutiny that the debate has provided. The changes we are making enable the Department to make more efficient use of limited assessment capacity, to reduce assessments where they are not needed in order to focus on where they are needed, and to allow PIP awards to be extended in an emergency or crisis, as emerged during the pandemic, thereby protecting some vulnerable people from unnecessary hardship. This is a measured amendment to ensure the effective administration of the benefits system. I hope that the hon. Member for South West Devon will not press the motion to a Division, but I fear she probably will—her party issued a press release before this Committee to say that Conservative Members would vote to annul the amendment, possibly before they realised what exactly was going on. If that is the case, I urge the Committee not to vote against the amendment.
24 Jun 2026 · Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance (Decisions and Appeals) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 (SI, 2026, No.457) · Hansard source
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I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. Thank you for permitting us to take our jackets off. I thank hon. Members who have spoken in the debate. As we have heard—my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley made the point absolutely correctly—this statutory instrument amends regulations to enable the best use of the assessment resources that we have available. It will help us to repair the broken system that we inherited, which needs to be repaired, and provides a much-needed safeguard against potential future challenges, in order to protect payments to vulnerable people. As mentioned by my hon. Friend, under the contracts with assessment providers that were negotiated by the last Government, we can call on only a finite volume of assessment capacity. We could, as the last Government did, use a large chunk of that capacity for frequent reassessments of PIP claimants whose circumstances most likely have not changed at all, or we can use that resource in a more productive way. That is what we have chosen to do. We want to do two new things. First, we want to recommence, properly, reassessments for the work capability assessment, which provides a gateway to the health premium in universal credit. The situation we inherited is that work capability assessments are carried out when somebody makes a new application, and after a period that person is due a reassessment. The number of reassessments that it has been possible to carry out has been lamentably low. The hon. Member for South West Devon commended PIP reassessments—if only the Conservatives had carried out the work capability reassessments. We want to switch some of the assessment capacity that was being used ineffectively by the last Government, so that it will be used effectively in future. The second thing we want to do, as my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley referred to, is to increase substantially the proportion of assessments that are carried out face to face. Almost all of them used to be face to face, then came the pandemic, and for reasons that we all understand, they switched to being phone-based or occasionally video-based assessments instead. But once the needs of the pandemic had passed, face-to-face assessments were never properly switched back on. Telephony was retained as the main channel, with just a small number of face-to-face assessments restarting in 2021. In our view, that is not good enough.
2 Jun 2026 · Workplace Exposure to Silica Dust · Hansard source
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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Liz Jarvis) on securing this important debate. I also pay tribute to her for her consistent work on this issue in supporting her constituent, Caroline Hudson, whose brother-in-law, George Elliott, tragically died of silicosis, as we have heard. I am very pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) in his place, as he invariably is for debates on health and safety matters, and to see the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), too. I am the Minister responsible for health and safety in the workplace and for the Health and Safety Executive, or HSE. There has rightly been a lot of interest and correspondence lately about the increased dangers of silicosis resulting from engineered stone, the concerns that have been raised in this debate. Workers—often quite young people, as we have heard—who have worked with engineered stone have been made seriously ill or even, on occasion, lost their lives. I want to extend my deepest sympathy to all individuals and families affected. We have been rightly informed that respirable crystalline silica—RCS—is a fine dust. It cannot normally be seen by the naked eye when airborne, but it does generally arise in visibly dusty processes. It is breathed in through the nose and mouth, can stay in the lungs for years and can cause irreversible lung damage before any symptoms become apparent. The illness it causes can continue to worsen after exposure stops. Breathing in RCS can lead to silicosis and the very serious harms we have heard about. It can also lead to other problems, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer, as the hon. Member for Eastleigh said. Every worker should be able to return home safe from work without fear of succumbing to a preventable deadly lung disease. Silica dust risks have long been recognised but we now know that engineered stone can contain very high concentrations of crystalline silica, as we have been reminded. What is particularly alarming in the past couple of years is the emergence of accelerated silicosis, which is linked to the processing of engineered stone containing high levels of silica at a much higher throughput without effective exposure controls being in place. As one might expect, engineered stone can be processed much more quickly than natural stone and that means that the volume of silica dust a worker can be exposed to is much greater. As a result, we have seen across the world rapid onset of illness after quite short exposure periods, with severe and irreversible lung damage occurring. As we have rightly been told in this debate, all of that is preventable where exposure to silica dust is controlled. We are determined that it should be prevented. It is well known, as we have been reminded, that Australia introduced a ban on engineered stone in July 2024, and California is now considering a similar approach. It is worth noting, though, that the danger of silicosis arises from natural stone, not just engineered stone. Having introduced a ban on engineered stone in July 2024, Australia then introduced restrictions on the use of natural stone in September of that year. We are not currently proposing a ban in the UK, because we do not think that is the right approach. HSE is working closely here with the Worktop Fabricators Federation. That has developed, in conjunction with the British Occupational Health Society, for which I have a high regarded, a quality mark for worktops, to reassure consumers that they are buying a worktop that has been produced safely, not putting workers at risk. It has a logo and the wording “strict silica safety standards applied”. Being able to display that quality mark is dependent on the fabricator demonstrating to a registered occupational hygienist compliance with a 16-point list, including, for example, point number 3: “The use of lower silica products (below 30%) wherever possible.” Accredited products can now be bought from some retailers listed on the Worktop Fabricators Federation website. As I said, we are going to keep this closely under review, though we are not currently proposing a ban on engineered stone in the UK. It would not solve the problem in workplaces that did not have adequate safeguards, because as I have said, problems can arise with natural stone. And the evidence is clear that workers can be protected from the dangers of engineered stone if the right control measures are in place. Those controls need to be in place now to make sure that exposure to harmful dust does not occur. One difference with Australia is the concern there about the safety of people installing the worktops. That has not been raised with me as yet. The risk that we have identified here is to people in workshops cutting the materials ahead of installation. There is a serious problem there, but of course it is possible that the problem could arise in installation as well, and we will keep this closely under review. A ban could lead to unintended consequences with alternative, less well-known materials introducing new risks. Last week, the Health and Safety Executive met Safe Work Australia—the body responsible—to discuss the impact of the ban there. It did an initial review and it identified potential concerns that the ban had led to complacency about the safety of other products that are not prohibited, suggesting that they were assumed to be safe to use without control measures when actually they are not. Control measures are needed for those products as well. But we are going to keep in touch with Safe Work Australia and keep the experience of the ban in Australia under review. A lot of workers in Britain work with these materials every day. Workers and their employers need to understand that controls to prevent exposure are essential, not optional. For many decades, we have had in place a robust regulatory framework—the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations, known as COSHH. That includes the need for control measures, substitution with less harmful materials, and health surveillance. There is also a workplace exposure limit of 0.1 mg per cubic metre for working with silica. That ceiling must not be exceeded, but those with duties are required to minimise exposure below that level. The HSE has published a range of practical guidance—some of it very recent—for those where risks are highest. That is focused on the need to control the dust at source. But the law and guidance are effective only when followed, and it is here that the HSE is now focusing its efforts. Over the last two years, the HSE has been building the evidence base, working with suppliers and developing an effective response. I was pleased to see the hon. Member for Eastleigh welcome that activity recently.
2 Jun 2026 · Workplace Exposure to Silica Dust · Hansard source
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Employers need to take care that visitors to their premises are protected. What is being done includes making sure that workers at risk are having respiratory health checks, lung function testing and X-rays at intervals decided by an occupational health professional, and that employers have clear processes for identifying and reporting symptoms. In this debate, the importance of carrying out reporting has rightly been identified. The HSE is currently consulting on expanding the requirements in the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations to include silicosis once again. The consultation on that is under way, and it will conclude at the end of the month. The hon. Member for Eastleigh was quite right to raise that issue. For those who choose not to comply with the law, we need effective enforcement. Starting in April and throughout the summer, HSE will be carrying out more than 1,000 inspections across the industry. It will inspect every place that we know of where this stone is being cut— if anyone knows of a place that we may not be aware of, please let me know; I want to make sure that HSE can go and look at it. HSE has carried out 13 inspections since they started at the end of April. Those were visits to places that concern was expressed to us about. Out of the 13 inspections so far, two businesses had ceased trading, but six of the remaining 11 were made to stop processing immediately. Prohibition notices were served for dry processing, unguarded machinery or both. Eight businesses received improvement notices for failing to provide the correct respiratory equipment, while eight received them for failing to provide health surveillance for employees. Just one of the 13 was operating in an exemplary way. Through the programme, HSE will inspect every site it can identify in the country that works with engineered stone. HSE’s inspectors are being briefed on the programme this week. The resources are available to do the job properly, and inspections are under way across the country. Wherever standards are not met, enforcement action will be taken, including a prohibition notice if necessary. As a result of the inspections, HSE may give a duty holder advice or, where there are more significant concerns, issue improvement or prohibition notices that require a duty holder to make improvements or stop dangerous activities altogether. The inspections are now under way, and we are determined to drive out the poor practice behind the problems we have heard about in this debate. We remain committed to ensuring that every worker in every sector is properly protected from this entirely avoidable harm. I welcome the contributions of Members who spoke today. I commend the campaign of The i Paper on this issue and all those who are working to highlight this important and alarming development. I will continue to monitor the evidence available in this country and keep an eye on what is going on elsewhere in the world. I will be very happy to consider further measures if it becomes clear that they are needed. Question put and agreed to.

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