Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

9. What steps she is taking to support vulnerable people into work.

[The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)]

We are committed to supporting vulnerable customers into work. At jobcentres, for example, we can identify the support needed and signpost people to courses or organisations to help them overcome barriers. We will be saying more about our proposals in the forthcoming employment White Paper.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

In my local jobcentre on Mare Street in my constituency, there is an extremely good team of DWP staff who work closely with vulnerable constituents to help them overcome the hurdles to getting benefits and getting into work. However, for people with fluctuating conditions, and particularly mental health conditions, there are many barriers both for them and for prospective employers. I wonder whether the Minister could give us a taster of what might be in the White Paper in terms of support for employers in particular to encourage them to take on people with such challenges.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I very much welcome my hon. Friend’s positive report of the work in her local jobcentre. She highlights a major challenge behind a significant proportion of increased inactivity over the past few years. We will set out our response in the “Getting Britain Working” White Paper, but we are already providing tailored support in partnership with NHS talking therapies and individual placement and support in primary care. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that there is a good deal more to be done.

[Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)]

Conservative-run East Sussex county council is threatening to close the Steps to Work programme, as well as Linden Court in Eastbourne, which supports people with learning disabilities to work towards employment. Will the Minister urge the county council to halt its plans and to consider alternatives such as selling off council buildings to raise the funds needed to provide these essential services for people with learning disabilities?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

The hon. Gentleman draws my attention to a concerning development. My view is that we need more support for people with learning disabilities to get into work, not less. If he sends me the details of the concerns he has raised, I will be happy to look into them further.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Mims Davies (East Grinstead and Uckfield) (Con)]

The well-received and groundbreaking Buckland review of autism employment focused on the action needed to help to tackle the lack of opportunities and outdated recruitment practices that do not meet the employment needs of autistic people. How is the Minister—I welcome him to his place—going to use this review, which I seem to remember him welcoming, to tackle the lack of understanding and ongoing stereotypes to help to make real change via Access to Work and other DWP interventions?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I thank the hon. Lady for her welcome. I am looking forward to a meeting with Sir Robert later on this month, and we will be talking exactly about that matter.

[Mims Davies]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that answer. The disability action plan mid-year update is now somewhat overdue. Can the Minister confirm to the House when there will be a much-needed update? In helping vulnerable people to thrive in all walks of life, whether in employment or in respect of equality of opportunity, will the Minister’s Government commit, like the previous Conservative Government did, to working towards hosting the 2031 Special Olympics?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

We will be saying more and we will provide an update in the forthcoming “Getting Britain Working” White Paper. If the hon. Lady would like to drop me a line about the Special Olympics, I would be happy to look into that as well.

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[Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)]

12. What guidance her Department has issued to private contractors working in partnership with Jobcentre Plus on reimbursing claimants’ travel costs.

[The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)]

Provider guidance, which is published on gov.uk, makes clear that contractors on all our employment programmes must reimburse customers’ reasonable travel costs.

[Josh Newbury]

I thank the Minister for that response. My constituent Connor is in a predicament: he is out of pocket for taxi fares to weekly or even twice weekly sessions with a Jobcentre Plus private contractor. Connor told me that the sessions last barely 15 minutes and are not helping him to reach his goal of becoming a mechanical engineering apprentice. Will the Minister review the value of Jobcentre Plus private contracts to both jobseekers and taxpayers?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Performance is reviewed regularly and there are customer satisfaction surveys, but unlike the previous Government, this Government want to publish performance data so that everybody can see what is going on.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister very much for his response. I think everyone wishes for claimants to be able to get job opportunities without finding themselves in a financial mess due to having to pay out for travel costs when they should be reimbursed. This is a big issue in my constituency in Northern Ireland. Will the Minister help directly those constituents who have been accordingly disadvantaged?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I am not familiar with the arrangements in Northern Ireland, but certainly in the rest of the UK it is very clear that contractors ideally need to pay up-front, buy tickets and give them to the jobseeker before they embark on their journey, or, if not, reimburse them very quickly on production of a receipt.

[Torsten Bell (Swansea West) (Lab)]

13. What steps she is taking to progress the work of the child poverty taskforce.

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[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

16. What steps she is taking to tackle carer’s allowance overpayments.

[The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)]

The work of unpaid carers is vital and often heroic, and we are determined to give them the support that they need. We are currently looking at options for tackling the problem of overpayments, including the possible introduction of a text message alert service.

[Alison Hume]

Carers make incredible sacrifices to care for loved ones, but they can be left deep in debt as a result of repaying the allowance after unintentionally breaching the qualifying rules. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we, as a society, have a duty of care to carers, and can he say more about the progress that the Government are making in overhauling carer’s allowance and addressing the earnings cliff edge?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I agree that we need to support carers properly. We want to get to the bottom of what has gone wrong with these overpayments and why so many people have been caught out. We have been piloting the introduction of a text message service, as I have mentioned, which has involved texting 3,500 claimants to alert them when His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs informs the DWP that they have breached the current earnings limit. We are currently looking at the results, and if they are positive, that will be the first step towards addressing the overpayments problem. We will need to do more, but it will be a good first step.

[Anna Dixon]

There are nearly 1,200 recipients of carer’s allowance in Shipley. The current earnings limit leaves people vulnerable to accidentally accruing overpayments if they become ineligible for the allowance, and it also acts as a disincentive, deterring people from working as much as they would like to. Will the Government consider raising the earnings limit?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend has written to me about this matter, and I welcome her commitment to making progress. In an excellent piece of work, the former Work and Pensions Committee made a number of recommendations on the earnings rules, and once the new Committee is in place, we shall respond to the former Committee’s proposals.

[Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)]

The Minister has referred to the army of carers that we have across the country, but we also have an army of unpaid carers who are being deterred from applying for carer’s allowance because of concerns about the financial implications. Can the Government reassure those who have not yet come forward that they will be supported properly?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I very much hope that we can, because the hon. Gentleman is right: there is a good deal of anxiety about these overpayment problems. We hope that the alert service will at least inform people when they run into a problem so that they do not then develop a large overpayment, which has happened all too often in the past, but we also need to look at the other arrangements relating to carer’s allowance in order to provide the reassurance for which the hon. Gentleman has rightly called.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

17. What assessment she has made of trends in the number of benefit sanctions in the last five years.

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[The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)]

I am not familiar with the report to which the hon. Member refers, but we committed in our manifesto to reviewing universal credit, nearly 15 years after it was first launched. The cliff edge issue and others will be among those that we will want to look at in the course of that review.

[Melanie Ward (Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy) (Lab)]

T6. After 14 years of Tory economic chaos and 17 years of Scottish National party public service failure, as many as one in four children in my constituency now live in poverty. Last year the Scottish Children’s Commissioner said that the former First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, had “absolutely” failed young people in Scotland. Does the Secretary of State agree that tackling child poverty will be a crucial part of the work of this Labour Government? As part of the important work that she is doing with the taskforce to develop a new child poverty strategy, will she come to my constituency—

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[Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)]

T8. The Secretary of State has today published 31 research papers commissioned but hidden by the previous Government, which among other things provide valuable insight into the experience of disabled people applying for personal independence payments in order to live and work independently. Why does the Minister think the last Government chose not to publish these findings?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend asks an extremely good question. The policy of the previous Government was to publish all such commissioned research reports within 12 weeks of receiving them. That policy was complied with until 2018, when Ministers stopped complying with it, so we have had to publish all these reports today. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s announcement is a vital first step in rebuilding the trust in the Department that was so shattered by the culture of secrecy, obfuscation and cover-up by Conservative Ministers.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

In response to several hon. Members, Ministers have spoken about the complexity of the ombudsman’s report on the WASPI campaign. While appreciating that, may I ask for a statement in principle that the Government will eventually offer significant compensation to the WASPI women?