Stephen Timms MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  I will not be giving way again. The Tories were never really interested in the disability employment gap. They had a brief flirtation in the 2015 general election campaign, when David Cameron suddenly announced a target to halve the gap. Unfortunately, as soon as that general election had been safely won, that target was immediately scrapped, and they reverted to type. We do care about disability employment. That is what we are making changes to address. In this Bill, we are making the changes to deliver. Question put, That the amendment be made.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  Yes, I can confirm to my hon. Friend that that is the case. We will table the amendment to do that. Let me say in answer to the hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann), who raised this point perfectly properly in the debate, that we will also remove the parallel provisions for Northern Ireland. He suggested that that would mean removing clause 6, but it does not mean that, because there are a lot of other things in schedule 2, which is referenced in clause 6. Paragraph 4 of schedule 2 addresses the points that we are dealing with.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  During this debate, my hon. Friend and others across the House have raised concerns that the changes to PIP are coming ahead of the conclusions of the review of the assessment that I will be leading. We have heard those concerns, and that is why I can announce that we are going to remove clause 5 from the Bill in Committee. We will move straight to the wider review—sometimes referred to as the Timms review—and only make changes to PIP eligibility activities and descriptors following that review. The Government are committed to concluding the review by the autumn of next year.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  I need to make a little more progress. As a number of Members highlighted in the debate, including my hon. Friends the Members for Clwyd North (Gill German) and for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey), a key step in this Bill is the first ever permanent real-terms increase in the standard allowance of universal credit. Actually, it is the first permanent real-terms increase in the headline rate of benefit for decades, and of course, the Tory party is against it. The Tories froze benefits time and again, and created the work disincentives and mass dependence on food banks that this Government are determined to now erase. We are, of course, also concerned that the future cost increases of PIP should be sustainable. Let me just look back at the record of those cost increases. In the year before the pandemic, 2019-20, PIP cost the then Government £12 billion at today’s prices; last year, it cost £22 billion. We want the system to be sustainable for the future. That is extremely important, because many people with large costs arising from ill health or disability depend on PIP. Those people need to be confident that the support will be there in the future, as well.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  My answer to my hon. Friend is the one I gave earlier: we need to await the outcome of the review and the assessment that it develops to determine whether it will be implemented in primary or secondary legislation.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  I want to make some further headway. In her speech, my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) drew attention to the fact that she and I had known each other for a long time, and that is correct. She urged us to listen to the voices of our constituents. In February, someone I had not met before came to my constituency surgery. He explained to me that he lost his arm aged six in a road accident. As a result, on leaving school at 16 he could not find a job. He tried really hard, but he could not find an employer that would take him, until in the year 2000 somebody told him about the new deal for disabled people, which found him a job. He then worked for 23 years without a break in a whole series of different jobs. He brought up his children and he paid his taxes, until in October 2023 he was in an unsatisfactory zero-hours job and he left it. To his dismay, he has not been able to find a job since. He came to me as his local MP to ask where to get help again, like he had from the new deal, but unfortunately that was all scrapped by the Tories and the Lib Dems after 2010. We are determined now to provide proper support again, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State yesterday announced further early funding for that support.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  I will not give way at the moment. The Bill opens up that possibility, and it deals with work disincentives inserted into universal credit by the previous Government. The current system forces people to aspire to be classified as sick in order to qualify for a higher payment, and once so classified, it abandons them. We have to change that system.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Personal Independence Payment · Hansard source

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  It is really important for claimants of PIP that its funding should be sustainable into the future. The trajectory of the past few years has been unsustainable. We are taking action to put that right. The hon. Member is wrong to say that because people did not get four points last time, they will not keep their PIP. As I said, the view of the OBR, which I think is correct, is that most of them will. We are consulting on how to support those who will lose their PIP as a result of the changes that we have announced.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Personal Independence Payment · Hansard source

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  No. Members will be voting for reforms to open up opportunities for people who have been denied opportunities for far too long. We are putting that right.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Personal Independence Payment · Hansard source

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  I recognise that many people who are on the PIP daily living component who did not get four points on anything at their last assessment are feeling rather anxious. However, what they need to know—I hope the hon. Member will reassure her constituents on this—is that it is the view of the Office for Budget Responsibility that most of them will nevertheless still have their PIP after their fresh assessment once the changes have been introduced. They will be introduced in November next year and an individual’s assessment will take place whenever their first award review is after that date. The OBR is confident and clear that most of those people will keep their PIP.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Personal Independence Payment · Hansard source

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  Among households as a whole, there will be more net gainers than net losers from the package. The reason for that is the increase to the standard allowance of universal credit, which according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies is the biggest increase to the headline rate of benefit since at least 1980. We are consulting on support for those who will lose carer’s allowance because of the changes and considering what additional help they may need, including for health and care needs. The hon. Member will have seen in the Bill we have published that we have committed to a 13-week run-on of benefit after an assessment decision so that people have time to adjust to the new situation.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Personal Independence Payment · Hansard source

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  The OBR has published its assessment, and my hon. Friend is right that it has assessed that one in 10 of those receiving PIP in November next year will have lost it by 2029-30—one in 10; not the much larger proportion that we were hearing about earlier. Following that, we will be able to introduce the biggest ever investment in employment support for people out of work on health and disability grounds. We do not want any longer to trap people on low incomes for years and years; we want people to be able to enter work and fulfil their ambitions. That is what the investment will allow.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Personal Independence Payment · Hansard source

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  We are putting in place a fairer system. Action was urgently needed. In the year before the pandemic, PIP cost the Government £12 billion at current prices, and last year it cost £22 billion. It also went up last year alone by £2.8 billion. PIP required urgent action, and that is what we are taking.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Personal Independence Payment · Hansard source

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  The current PIP application process is outdated and can be very difficult to follow. Alongside proposed legislative changes, the Department’s health transformation programme will greatly improve the experience of applying and, I hope, increase confidence in the outcomes of the assessment as a result.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Personal Independence Payment · Hansard source

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  I am not sure whether the shadow Minister wants me to go further or not so far—he seems to be facing both ways. He is right that we are not at this point proposing any changes to the Motability scheme.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I am looking forward to answering questions about these matters in front of the Committee on Wednesday morning. We are working very closely with the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that the health and care needs of people who lose benefits as a result of this process are met.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend’s constituent will benefit from the big increase in the universal credit standard allowance, which we have talked about, and from free school meals for her children. Somebody who starts work or increases their hours may also be eligible for support with up-front childcare costs. The flexible support fund can award the full cost for up to a month of fees to a childcare provider in advance of the care being delivered, so that may be an option for his constituent.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We are reviewing universal credit to ensure that it makes work pay and tackles poverty, and we are looking at exactly the kind of problem that my hon. Friend highlights. I would be delighted to meet him to discuss it, because Nicola, Steven and all 7,000 households claiming universal credit in his constituency will benefit from the standard allowance increase proposed in the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill, which we will be debating next week; it is the biggest increase in the headline rate of benefits since at least 1980. [ Official Report , 26 June 2025; Vol. 769, c. 6WC.] (Correction)

• 23 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I commend my hon. Friend for all his work on this issue, including his seminal 2022 independent review. He is right that care leavers need support as they move to independent living. The Department for Work and Pensions at the moment exempts care leavers from the shared accommodation rate, and provides support toward sustained employment and career progression. We will certainly consider if there is more that we can do.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Asbestos Removal: Non-domestic Buildings · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend raises a very interesting point. I am not aware of any data about that. From time to time, however, one hears of or comes across people who have succumbed to mesothelioma in their 20s or 30s, and an obvious possibility is that they were exposed at school to the dangerous asbestos that led to that catastrophic outcome. Both my hon. Friends have pressed the case for asbestos to be removed, and I want us to have a better understanding of the size and scale of the asbestos legacy in the built environment and an evidence base for future strategic decisions on removal. I have been working on this with the HSE since last July. I chaired a roundtable event with stakeholders last October to explore the issue and consider what we need to tackle Britain’s asbestos legacy effectively. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields pointed out, the Work and Pensions Committee made a strong and compelling case for the establishment of a national digital register of all workplace asbestos, bringing together into one accessible place all the separate records maintained—all over the place—by law at the moment. The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 already require duty holders either to survey premises constructed before asbestos was banned or assume that it is present. A lot of duty holders commission external consultants to fulfil their obligations under the regulations, and they maintain records on their own databases, so compiling a national register would be a less gargantuan task than may initially be assumed. Establishing a national register would require significant resource from duty holders and the Government, at a time when resources are tight. With the HSE, I am looking at how we can develop better information on asbestos in buildings, and on ways of gathering a robust and reliable dataset to provide the foundation to inform longer-term strategy for the removal of asbestos. If we cannot at this stage commit to a national register, a one-off asbestos census may be the way to start, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields suggested. The solution is likely to be a phased approach to improving information on buildings containing asbestos, to help us build an objective and reliable evidence base. A better understanding of the costs and associated impacts for the Government’s own estate—schools, hospitals and so on—would be a good place to start, before considering wider roll out. HSE is considering how best to take that forward in a way that will ensure we can obtain reliable, standardised data. Alongside that, HSE is supporting digitalisation of built environment data, using building information modelling, or BIM. That approach enables improvements to the identification, recording, sharing and use of information on health and safety risks such as asbestos. The possibility of a surge in asbestos removal, triggered by actions on the part of the Government, needs to be planned for. Asbestos requires specialised waste disposal and removal, in many instances by licensed contractors. We would need to avoid the risk of duty holders removing asbestos without proper controls, and not disposing of it at licensed sites. That would present a significant exposure risk in itself. In March, I attended part of the HSE’s asbestos research summit, which took place in Manchester. That brought together world-leading experts on asbestos, with duty holders, employer groups and mesothelioma support groups. I am pleased to say Liz Darlison was there. The summit was to inform where we should focus our efforts to ensure we continue to understand the nature of the asbestos exposure risk across the country.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Asbestos Removal: Non-domestic Buildings · Hansard source

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  I will come on to address exactly the point that my hon. Friend raises. He is absolutely right to do so. Let me just make the point that asbestos does need to be removed before any major refurbishment work or before demolition. Under current arrangements it will eventually be removed, albeit over an extremely long time. There are around 40,000 notifications of asbestos removal jobs every year. The HSE inspects to check that duty holders are managing asbestos effectively, both in the public and commercial sectors. Those inspections, I am pleased to say, have been significantly stepped up since the Select Committee on Work and Pensions report published in April 2022, at a time when I was Chair of the Committee, and to which my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields referred. That report was critical of the decline in the number of asbestos inspections and enforcement notices since 2010. The report pointed out that between 2011-12 and 2018-19, while the total number of enforcement notices from the HSE fell by 10%, the number of asbestos enforcement notices had fallen by 60% to less than 200 in the year 2018-19. Increased activity by the HSE on asbestos since then has seen the overall number of enforcement notices climb to over 300 under the Control of Asbestos Regulations in 2024-25. Inspection activity is a means of providing assurance that the regulations are effective and that those with duties are complying with them. For example, between September 2022 and March 2025, HSE inspectors have visited over 1,000 schools to inspect their arrangements for managing asbestos. They found good levels of compliance in those 1,000 schools with the responsibilities to manage the risk of asbestos—albeit with 8% requiring enforcement notice action to improve their performance. This is particularly important given, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields pointed out, the proportionately higher number of cases of asbestos-related diseases among retired teachers compared with other professions. So it is right to focus on schools as a particularly pressing issue, along with hospitals and NHS premises, which she also mentioned. In the last year—2024-25—this work was expanded to include inspections of local authority head offices and premises. In his intervention, my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) referred to council buildings as being of concern, and he is absolutely right to do so, so current plans for this year—2025-26—include a further 600 visits to schools and local authorities to be completed by March next year. The HSE is also focused on the management of asbestos in commercial sectors. In 2024-25, its inspections dealt with the management of asbestos more than 2,330 times. Of the buildings found to contain asbestos, 40% required either written advice or an enforcement notice. This was the first year of a multi-year focus on asbestos in commercial sectors. Together with the guidance on asbestos published on the HSE website, communications campaigns are important in raising awareness and understanding. The Asbestos—Your Duty campaign was launched in January last year to reach those responsible for the maintenance and repair of non-domestic buildings built before 2000 and to raise awareness of the legal duty to manage asbestos. In his intervention, my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth and Ashington made the point that the current arrangements are not always working, and we need to draw people’s attention to their legal responsibilities. That campaign is running alongside the Asbestos & You campaign, which focuses on reducing exposure to asbestos for tradespeople.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Asbestos Removal: Non-domestic Buildings · Hansard source

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  I am delighted to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Western—for the first time, I think—and I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Emma Lewell) for bringing this important debate to the House. She made the point that this is the first time under the current Government that we have had the opportunity to debate this issue, so I congratulate her on securing this debate. I share in the grief of all those who, like my hon. Friend, have lost somebody close to them as a consequence of exposure to asbestos. As she and others reminded us, it is still by far the biggest cause of work-related deaths in the UK—it is responsible for 5,000-plus deaths per year—and many people live with the impact of asbestos-related disease. I join my hon. Friend in commending the work of the journalist Steve Boggan, who has highlighted this topic very helpfully. Hanging in my office in the House of Commons, a few yards from here, I currently have a portrait of Mavis Nye and her husband, Ray. Ray Nye became an apprentice in the Chatham dockyard in 1953 and worked there for a number of years. Asbestos was everywhere. In 1957, during his apprenticeship, he met Mavis. He refers to that encounter as “the most wonderful thing ever to enter my life”. They married, and Mavis used to launder his overalls. At some point she breathed in asbestos dust. Fifty years later, in 2009, she was diagnosed with mesothelioma. We have heard about very long latency periods. It appears that in Mavis’s case, it was 50 years before she was diagnosed. Thanks to pioneering treatment at the Royal Marsden hospital, she lived for another 14 years. She and Ray established the Mavis Nye Foundation to inspire mesothelioma victims. She was a force of nature. She sadly died in 2023, but it was her wish that her portrait should be hung in the House of Commons. In fulfilment of that wish, it hangs in my office this afternoon. It will soon be returned to Ray, but I am glad that we have been able to fulfil that wish and help celebrate the contribution of a remarkable woman—just one of the many thousands who have died as a result of earlier asbestos exposure in the last couple of years. In Britain we have a mature and well-established approach to the management of asbestos in buildings. The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012, enforced by the Health and Safety Executive and other regulators, requires duty holders to assess whether asbestos is present, what condition it is in and whether it gives rise to a risk of exposure. The duty holder must then draw up a plan to manage the risk associated with asbestos, which must include removal if it cannot be safely managed where it remains. There is an existing legal obligation for duty holders to remove degrading asbestos and to share details of asbestos in their premises with people who work regularly in a building and may potentially disturb or damage materials which contain asbestos.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Asbestos Removal: Non-domestic Buildings · Hansard source

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  I am aware of that claim, and think there is a strong case. The HSE is working through the suggestions from the research summit to develop a broader programme and will publish the areas of focus for research later in the year. The aim is that that prospectus will shape work in this field for decades to come. There is a lot of work to do, a lot of work under way and a lot more progress still to be made. My hon. Friends are absolutely right to make the case for the goal of an asbestos-free Great Britain and a plan for asbestos to be removed across the country. I am grateful to them and others for continuing to press the case and for their support. I look forward to further discussions with them, and agree that we still need to do a great deal. Question put and agreed to.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Asbestos Removal: Non-domestic Buildings · Hansard source

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  I welcome the opportunity to discuss that proposal with my hon. Friend, to see what we can do. At the research summit, we talked about the need to ensure that everybody involved in the asbestos ecosystem understood their role and the impact their behaviours can have in preventing exposure for themselves and others through their activity at work.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Digital Exclusion · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right. It is important to ensure that the tech that is available in jobcentres is appropriate for people’s needs. One element of the action plan is the launch this summer of an “IT reuse for good” charter, encouraging organisations to set up device donation schemes, because we think that they can play a helpful part as well.