Stephen Timms MP: speeches

Speeches

• 8 Dec 2025 · Review of Carer’s Allowance Overpayments · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is a great campaigner for carers on this issue and others. She is absolutely right: this is a very serious problem that was ignored for 10 years, despite there being quite a lot of publicity about it. I hope, as she says, that trust will now be rebuilt as we fix these problems in the coming months.

• 8 Dec 2025 · Review of Carer’s Allowance Overpayments · Hansard source

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  I am very sorry about what happened to many carers. For example, only about half of the alerts that came into the Department from HMRC were checked, so overpayments that the Department had been notified of carried on for months and months. Of course, genuine overpayments do still need recovery and that work will continue. If people run into difficulties, it is always worth talking to the DWP debt management service.

• 8 Dec 2025 · Review of Carer’s Allowance Overpayments · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman will know that the carer’s allowance has an earnings threshold, which we have increased very significantly—the biggest increase in the earnings threshold that there has ever been. We are also looking, in the longer term, at introducing a taper to carer’s allowance, instead of the cliff-edge earnings threshold that is still there at the moment. That will not be a quick fix, but once it is in place, I think it will help with the concern he raises.

• 8 Dec 2025 · Motability · Hansard source

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  I do agree with my hon. Friend, and I would be happy to meet him. Motability is an important scheme that does an important job. Some tax reliefs will be removed in July. Existing leases will not be affected, and neither will wheelchair-adapted vehicles. There will still be vehicles, with no up-front payment, that are affordable solely through the mobility component of personal independence payment, so the scheme will continue to do a great job but will give better value for money for taxpayers.

• 8 Dec 2025 · Motability · Hansard source

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  Well, choosing the most misleading claim is a tough contest, but the hon. Gentleman is right. The shadow Secretary of State’s colleagues introduced PIP, with the current criteria, in 2013. They then had 11 years to change it if they thought doing so was necessary, but they did absolutely nothing. My review will look at the eligibility criteria for the mobility component of PIP.

• 8 Dec 2025 · Motability · Hansard source

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  Changes announced at the Budget will improve value for money for taxpayers while ensuring that the Motability scheme continues to provide outstanding support for disabled people.

• 5 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Yes, I do. We want a more inclusive society where neurodivergent people, including those with dyspraxia, are supported to thrive. We are working across Government to support earlier intervention in schools, including through the partnerships for inclusion of neurodiversity in schools programme, and the special educational needs and disabilities reforms coming forward in the new year, but we are also, beyond education, taking a wider view of how we ensure people with conditions such as dyspraxia are not held back.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  I am going to make a bit more progress. We have seen what happens when social security is not managed properly. We have seen the consequences for child poverty and for the many thousands denied the opportunity to work—people who want to work, and who could work, with the right support. We are taking action now to give people the best chances in life, so that they can support themselves and their family. We are delivering on our plan to make work pay, including by removing the work disincentives from universal credit. We are joining up support, so that people get proper help into work. We are giving children and young people the best possible start in life and are setting them up to succeed in future. Unlike the previous Government, we are not resigned to failure. We are investing in success, in work, in health, and in skills support to provide hope for a better future. We are actively helping people along their own path to work, and creating an opportunity welfare state. We have made a great start, but there is a huge amount still to do, and I welcome this chance to seek the House’s support for our mission.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The disability employment gap fell steadily under the previous Labour Government, but it has been stuck at about 30% ever since 2010. There was one moment in those 14 long years of Tory rule when it looked as though they planned to do something about it. In the middle of the 2015 general election campaign, David Cameron announced a target of halving the disability employment gap. It was like they suddenly woke up at that moment, but as soon as that election had been safely won, they scrapped the target. They just went back to passive benefit processing again.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  We have made major changes in the Universal Credit Act 2025, which will take effect in April of next year. We are making the changes that are needed. Lastly, when building a more active welfare system, we need to ensure that every penny we spend goes on the support that it is designed to provide. That is why the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill is working its way back through this House under the guidance of the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western), as we speak. In that Bill, there are new powers for the Department to tackle fraud and error, so that we can realise £1.5 billion in benefits by 2029-30. Those are among wider measures that we expect will save £9.6 billion over the same period. That is needed, given that on the previous Government’s watch, in 2023-24, fraud against the public sector stood at an estimated £55 billion. In the same year, benefit fraud alone was £7.3 billion. There is a lot to be done.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  Yes, I can. I will come on to talk about that in a couple of minutes. In contrast to the passive approach of the last Government, we will be active. We are investing in and joining up work, health and skills support. We have brought adult skills and apprenticeships, further education, training and careers into the DWP so that we are better able to give people the skills to thrive in today’s economy and to enable them to move into good secure jobs.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is a welcome and much-needed step. The early years are crucial to somebody’s life chances. Ensuring that children grow up happy, healthy and able to fulfil their potential is certainly, to borrow a phrase from the motion, “a moral mission”. However, it is also about reducing demand on social security, instead of sitting on our hands like the last Government and leaving the system to pick up higher costs further down the line. The child poverty strategy will build on our cross-Government approach to lifting people out of poverty through rolling out free breakfast clubs, raising the national minimum wage and, as my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Mr Charters) points out, expanding free childcare and free school meals to all families on universal credit. It will be an ambitious strategy and in developing it we will consider all the levers available to give every child the best start in life. To make work pay: that was what universal credit was intended to do. Yet it was left with perverse disincentives to work in the system, forcing people, as many did, to aspire to be classified as sick in order to qualify for a higher payment. We have addressed that by rebalancing the payments in universal credit, alongside other reforms. The system should not force people to aspire to be classified as sick; it should promote and encourage work and provide support to make work feasible. As the shadow Secretary of State kindly mentioned, we are progressing the review, which I am responsible for.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  I enjoyed listening to the shadow Secretary of State’s fierce critique of the state of the benefits system that was left behind after 14 years of Tory government. She made some good points about it. By contrast, this Government are building a welfare system that is proactive and pro-work, has opportunity at its heart, and will change lives for the better—in rather the way she suggested that the system needs. For every person we can help into good work, it will mean a better life for them and better mental health and finances. It will be better for the public purse as well. Getting people off welfare and into work requires an active approach, and we do have a plan. The system left behind by the last Government of passive benefit processing was simply not up to the job. That is why they left behind, as the shadow Secretary of State said, nearly a million young people not in education, employment or training, and 2.8 million people economically inactive through long-term ill health. We are determined to put those failures right.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  I have read somewhere that the list of things the hon. Lady has gone through would, the Conservatives estimate, save £23 billion. Part of that is from housing benefit. Can she tell us how much of the £23 billion would be saved from housing benefit?

• 4 Nov 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  I do envisage that, as people get back to work, there will be savings on social security. I think we will see at the Budget projections from the Office for Budget Responsibility of future moves into employment as a result of the changes that we are making, and savings will certainly arise. We want our work coaches, as the right hon. Gentleman has just pointed out, to spend less time on bureaucracy and more time on what they do best, which is giving people the benefit of their expertise and helping people move closer to work. Good work will also be a key part of the child poverty strategy, which we will bring forward by the end of the year. We will tackle child poverty by increasing family incomes, reducing family costs, building financial resilience and improving local support. Some people will remember that I took the Child Poverty Act 2010 through Parliament, with all-party support at the time. It was quickly scrapped by the coalition Government and the number of children growing up in poverty has gone up by 900,000 since then. Welfare spending has also rocketed. Reducing both child poverty and welfare spending are not opposites.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  It is vital that we make sure that those in real need do not miss out, and I can reassure the hon. Lady that I am in fairly regular contact with her colleague in the Northern Ireland Assembly. These are certainly things that the two Governments need to discuss.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman raises a good, practical point. Quite a lot of GP surgeries certainly do have space and welcome work coaches or an adviser on to the premises, but he is right that that does not work everywhere, so we need to be flexible and have a local approach for each area. That is what Connect to Work will deliver. We also need to stop people from falling out of work unnecessarily in the first place due to ill health. Stopping work is often not in the interests of either the employee or the employer, but far too often it happens by default. Therefore, Sir Charlie Mayfield has been leading the Keep Britain Working review on how Government and businesses can work together for more inclusive, healthier workplaces. He will report his findings very soon. This active approach is particularly important for young people, as the shadow Secretary of State suggested in her opening remarks. After 14 years, so many were left not in employment, education or training, and being out of work for a long time at the start of what should be working life does long-term damage to their health, earnings potential and prospects. There are obviously consequences for the social security system as well. If we do not get somebody on a productive path early on, it can be really hard to change course further down the line, so we are expanding the number of youth hubs, partnering with sports clubs to get help to people in the community and developing a youth guarantee to ensure that 18 to 21-year-olds are earning or learning. As the Chancellor announced last month, learning from the success of Labour’s future jobs scheme, that will include a jobs guarantee. Our youth guarantee trailblazers are up and running, innovating and testing out the best ways to join up support and make the most of young people’s talent and potential, from mental health support to flexible work experience sessions. Those trailblazers will inform the national roll-out of the guarantee so that everybody has the chance to start off their working lives on the right foot. We are reforming jobcentres by introducing the jobs and careers service: a universal service, moving away from one-size-fits-all and offering much more personalised support. We are also testing changes to the claimant commitment as we look to free up work coaches.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  I will make a little more headway. The review will be co-produced with disabled people, to ensure that the system supports disabled people to achieve better health, higher living standards and greater independence, including through work. We will also carry out more face-to-face assessments over the next year, boosting the number of health professionals working in assessment centres. Face-to-face assessments were stopped for understandable reasons during the pandemic, but they were never really brought back. The places where they were carried out were sold off and we are having to reinstate and rebuild that service.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman makes another interesting reflection on the state of the system left behind by 14 years of Tory government. We are going to be making progress, as I said. Our plan will help deliver our ambition not just for jobs but for national renewal by building new homes, making the NHS fit for the future and powering the shift to green energy. Among people of working age, those with low or no qualifications are some 2.5 times more likely to be out of work than those who are better qualified. Just closing that gap would mean a million extra people in work. But skills are not the only barrier; for many, it is ill health, and we are determined to get people back to work and back to good health. We will open up more opportunities for people who have been out of work because of ill health in the past with WorkWell employment advisers embedded directly in healthcare teams, from GP surgeries to mental health services.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  I will make a bit more headway first. Connect to Work will go to the end of the decade to support 300,000 disabled people and people with health and other complex barriers to employment to get into and get on in work. Our Pathways to Work guarantee, backed by an additional £1 billion a year by the end of the decade, will bring all that together with personalised work, health and skills support for anybody on out-of-work benefits with a health condition or disability who wants that support. We already have 1,000 new Pathways to Work advisers in place, working in jobcentres across the country to help disabled people. A few weeks ago I met a couple of them in Edinburgh, and they told me of the positive reactions from the people they ring up. The system gave up on those people years ago, but we have not given up on them.

• 27 Oct 2025 · Benefit Sanctions: Neurodiverse Claimants · Hansard source

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  Work coaches are required to tailor work-related requirements to claimants’ capabilities and circumstances, and they can pause them if that is appropriate.

• 27 Oct 2025 · Benefit Sanctions: Neurodiverse Claimants · Hansard source

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  We certainly do want the system to support people such as Ross. If work-related requirements are missed, the reason for that should be asked for, with seven days allowed for an answer. There should also be a pre-referral check before a sanction referral takes place. If the hon. Gentleman would like to send me the details of what happened in that particular case, I will happily look into it.

• 27 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Transitional protection is available for people making the transition across, and I spoke earlier about the support being provided through the enhanced support journey to people for whom the transition may be particularly difficult. I am thinking, for example, about some people on employment and support allowance. If the hon. Member is worried about particular cases and would like to send me the details, I am very happy to look at them.

• 27 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Demand for Access to Work has risen sharply. I mentioned earlier that spending went up by 17% over the past year, but I do not think Access to Work can replace a well-designed support programme. That is what we are determined to put in place, and the Department’s new, independent disability advisory panel will help us work out the best approaches to employment support.

• 27 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I can reassure my hon. Friend that the review of the PIP assessment, including the mobility element of that benefit, will be undertaken fully in co-production with disabled people and disabled people’s organisations. I will be setting out very shortly how the review I am going to be leading will be undertaken.