Timms Review: Interim Report

Debate between Andrew George and Stephen Timms

Thursday 9th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms]

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.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard), I welcome the broad direction of the review. I acknowledge that this is happening in the context of some people attempting to create a hostile environment—I hope Count Binface will deal with one source of that hostile environment in the weeks to come—but there is also the issue of language, as I think the Minister acknowledges. We should use less of the language of “welfare benefits” and “dependency”, and more of the language of “investment in people”, particularly investment in mental health services. Will he work with Ministers in the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that people are supported before they need benefits, and that we invest in people so that their talents can be enjoyed in the workplace?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

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.