Stephen Timms MP: speeches

Speeches

• 3 Feb 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. I recently met a very impressive group of young people who have managed to navigate their way through education while also having very heavy caring responsibilities. We are working closely with the Department for Education, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Carers Trust and the Learning and Work Institute to make sure that we are providing the support young carers need.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I commend the resilience of my hon. Friend. Before Christmas, I spoke at a report launch with the charity Working with Cancer, which focuses on exactly the issue she has raised. She is right: employers have a key role in supporting people with cancer to continue to thrive in work, and the “Keep Britain Working” review will engage with people with lived experience as well as employers.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Yes, I do agree with my hon. Friend, and I am grateful to him for highlighting that case. We have asked the Department for Health and Social Care to review its decision in that case—I hope with a positive outcome.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We keep these matters under review. I have not looked at that particular proposal before, but if the hon. Gentleman would like to drop me a line I will certainly give it a careful look.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right that there has been a particularly big increase in mental health problems among young people. Given what the last Government did, I can well understand people being worried. We will continue to support people with mental health problems in the health and disability benefits system. The proposals for reform we will bring forward in the spring will make sure the system is fit for purpose and fair to the taxpayer, and they will deliver the support in work that people such as my hon. Friend’s constituents need.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Vulnerable People: Work Support · Hansard source

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  We are fully committed to helping vulnerable people into work. It is good for them, it provides firms with great workers, it reduces the benefits bill, and it boosts economic growth. Connect to Work, which will be rolled out this year, will greatly improve support.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Vulnerable People: Work Support · Hansard source

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  I think my hon. Friend will greatly welcome the youth guarantee announced in the “Get Britain Working” White Paper. We want to ensure that every single young person gets the same chance. We have seen a dreadful increase in the number of NEET young people over the past few years, and we are getting to grips with that and tackling it.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Vulnerable People: Work Support · Hansard source

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  Yes, I definitely do understand his concerns. Our view is that disabled people should have the same chance to work—the same opportunities—that everyone else takes for granted, and we want to work with disabled people to reform the system to ensure that that is what they get. In the spring, we will publish a Green Paper on reforms to the health conditions and disability benefits system.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Children and Young People with Cancer · Hansard source

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  I will give way, but I will not have very much time.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Children and Young People with Cancer · Hansard source

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  I am not able to announce a big change this afternoon along the lines that the hon. Gentleman has suggested, but I do want to comment—and would have done, if I had had a little longer—on the qualifying period. I have met the campaigners with their MP, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff). They make a compelling and vivid case about their own experience, as well as the financial and emotional difficulties that they suffered as a result. The qualifying period is there to distinguish between a short-term and long-term condition. It is not about fraud, as the hon. Member for Wokingham suggested might be the case; it is there to make that distinction, and it is quite an important part of the eligibility process for benefits. I am not able to announce a big change in that. Of course, we will keep these things under review. I have met the campaigners, and we will certainly listen to representations that come forward— Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

• 8 Jan 2025 · Children and Young People with Cancer · Hansard source

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  Like everybody else, I am delighted to find you in the Chair this afternoon, Mrs Lewell-Buck I welcome this debate, as well as the speech that the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) made and the consistent attention he has paid to this issue since he was elected last year. I also welcome what all the others who have spoken in this debate have said. There is a lot that I would like to say in response, but unfortunately I have only four or five minutes in which to say it. I will have to cut my remarks rather short, so I might need to write to the hon. Gentleman with some of my responses, rather than putting them on the record now. However, I am glad that he has drawn attention to the fact that the Secretary of State has said he is reinstating that taskforce in our 10-year plan for the NHS, within which he has made it clear that he wants a separate cancer plan. It will be very helpful for the children and young people cancer taskforce to focus on identifying ways to include outcomes for this particular group of patients. The debate has focused on the contribution of the social security system in supporting families of children and young people with cancer through the disability living allowance for children aged under 16 and the personal independence payment for those who are 16 or above. Those benefits are available if a child or young person’s condition or illness is long term and gives rise to care, daily living or mobility needs. The benefits contribute to the extra costs arising as a result of a disability or health condition. I will not claim that the support meets all the costs, as that would be incorrect, but they are a contribution—that is intention behind them. The assessment for those benefits is based on the needs of the individual rather than on the condition, and many with cancer are eligible. The highest level of benefits can mean an extra £9,500 a year tax-free—the order of magnitude that the hon. Gentleman refers to. The benefit is usually paid to the parent of the child, and so can help with overall family finances, as they see fit. We are currently supporting about 3,000 children under 16 and 2,000 young people between 16 and 24 with cancer, with an average award of around £155 per week.

• 18 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend raises a good example of the kind of topic we need to work on across Government, and I was pleased to chair the first meeting of the cross-Government disability lead Ministers yesterday. The Department for Transport has consulted on this problem, which can be very serious for people with a sight impairment, and is considering the options for tackling it. I very much hope that my hon. Friend will let me know what he finds out in his walk around his constituency shortly.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Universal Credit · Hansard source

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  We are committed to reviewing universal credit to ensure that it is doing the job that we need it to. We have started by announcing the fair repayment rate in the Budget, and we will keep Parliament updated.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Universal Credit · Hansard source

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  We are watching very carefully the progress of migration from tax credits to universal credit, which will be complete in the early part of next year, but I would be very happy to meet the hon. Lady and discuss some of the difficulties she is seeing.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Universal Credit · Hansard source

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  I can assure my hon. Friend that advances of up to 100% of potential universal credit entitlements are available urgently during the first assessment period of a claim, but she is right to raise concerns about the five-week wait. I commend to her the excellent report on this subject published by the Work and Pensions Committee in the last Parliament. The point she has raised is definitely one that we need to consider.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Universal Credit · Hansard source

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  No assessment along the lines that the hon. Gentleman asks about has been made. Benefit rates are reviewed each year, increasing by 6.7% last April and by 1.7% from next April, in line with inflation.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Universal Credit · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting suggestion. That is not something I am considering at the moment, but as he will have heard me say earlier, we will be reviewing universal credit over the course of the next year or so. We certainly want to support young care leavers—he will know of the recent announcement that we made about changes to carer’s allowance—and we are keeping all those matters under review.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member raises a very important point. She will probably be aware of the Buckland review, published before the election, which looks specifically at employment support for people with autism. The Minister for Employment and I met Sir Robert Buckland recently, and we are looking at how we can take forward the ideas he proposed in his report.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We do keep the assessment process under review, but I would be happy to look at the details of this particular case and perhaps meet the hon. Lady and her constituent, if that would be helpful.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I welcome the NAO report, which I asked for last May, when I was Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee. We are determined to address the problem of carer’s allowance overpayments. The cliff edge could be dealt with through the introduction of a taper instead of the current arrangements, as the Chancellor mentioned in her Budget speech in the autumn. If we do that, it will not happen quickly, because it will be quite a major project, but it is something that we are looking at closely.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Yes, I can confirm that. We place a very high value on the contribution of family carers. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, the Budget announcement on the carer’s allowance earning threshold will help avert inadvertent overpayments, and will make an additional 60,000 carers eligible for carer’s allowance. We are determined to do everything we can.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend raises a very important point. There is a problem in the interaction between the universal credit taper rate and the housing benefit taper for people in supported and temporary accommodation. We are, at the moment, looking at options for how to tackle that quite serious work disincentive problem.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Ill Health and Disability Benefits · Hansard source

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  I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we will make the right decisions, and they will be set out in our Green Paper in the spring. There is a need to reform the health and disability benefits system—there is no question about that—and we want to talk to disabled people themselves about the details, in order to make sure that we get it right.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Ill Health and Disability Benefits · Hansard source

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  We want to reform the system to do a much better job in helping people to enter and stay in work. We will publish a Green Paper next spring and we will be discussing our proposals with disabled people.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Disability History Month · Hansard source

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  It was a very good event. I made some rather poor efforts to address the group in British Sign Language—my first attempt. I know that she will be pleased—I am sure the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths) will be as well—to know that we are committed to supporting the British Sign Language advisory board, which was set up in the wake of Rosie Cooper’s British Sign Language Act 2022. It is the UK Government’s first dual-language board focusing on key issues that affect deaf people. We are committed to promoting and supporting British Sign Language and we will shortly be publishing the 2023-24 British Sign Language annual report. I am pleased to join my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North in congratulating the Royal School for the Deaf Derby on the accolades that it has received from Ofsted, and I very much agree with the important points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) about the importance of what is being provided to ensure that people’s hearing is well looked after and supported. I need to work closely with ministerial colleagues and with other Departments right across Government to ensure that disabled people get the support they need to overcome the daily barriers that they face. The commitment that I am setting out today on behalf of the Government needs to be a whole of Government endeavour, so I was very pleased about and grateful for what Members said in the debate about my announcement last week of a lead Minister for disability in every Department to represent the interests of disabled people and to champion disability inclusion and accessibility in their Department. I will chair regular meetings with the members of that group and encourage them to engage directly with disabled people and their representative organisations as they work on their departmental priorities. I am looking forward to the group’s first meeting next week, and I can give my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock the assurance that she is looking for about our shared aims and what that group will be working towards.