Timms Review: Interim Report

Marie Tidball Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms]

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.

[Dr Marie Tidball (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

I welcome the review and thank disabled people, who have shaped it. Last year, I was pleased that the Minister accepted my amendment to the Universal Credit Bill to ensure that co-production with disabled people was put at the heart of the Timms review before any future changes to PIP were brought forward. Today’s rich and important findings demonstrate why “nothing about us without us” is so crucial in shaping Government disability policy. How does the Minister plan to ensure that colleagues across his Department—as well as Alan Milburn and Sir Charlie Mayfield, who are reviewing ways to close the employment gap for disabled people and young people with mental health problems—learn from the Timms review and integrate the voices of disabled people? Will the Minister agree to come back to the House with the full findings of his report and to ensure that changes to PIP are joined up with the findings of the two other reviews, so that there is strategic coherence across Government policy on getting more disabled people into work?

[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.