Social Security and Pensions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ms Buck]

This freeze in local housing allowance, which is such a critical element of people’s income, is causing such hardship for hundreds of thousands of families. That is not only undermining living standards in the middle of a cost of living crisis, but leading to utterly perverse disparities between areas due to differences in rent inflation. The 30th percentile of rents in Bristol is £100 more than in Newbury, but the amount of housing support that those who live in Bristol can receive is £12.50 less than those who live in Newbury. To quote the Institute of Fiscal Studies again:

“the current approach makes little sense. It permanently bakes in historic information about differences in rents across the country, while entirely ignoring current information about those differences.”

We can see the real-world consequences playing out on our streets as rough sleeping soars and council homelessness units are stretched to breaking point.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I simply want to respond briefly to the intervention of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who mentioned me in passing—inaccurately, I must say. He was wrong to say that benefits have been uprated in line with inflation. At the moment, the headline rate of benefits is the lowest in real terms for 40 years, following the repeated freezes we have had. Does my hon. Friend agree that the hon. Member for Gloucester ought to check the record?

[Ms Buck]

I totally agree with my right hon. Friend, who speaks with expertise on this issue.

The fact is that we have seen the implications of freezes in benefits. We are seeing it in soaring poverty, and we are seeing support for housing and childcare costs failing. Those things need to be based on real-world prices, not those obtained in the past. Universal credit and legacy benefits need to be uprated with general inflation—not just once in a while, but every year—if their value is not to be permanently eroded. It would be welcome if the Minister could commit to those basic principles at least.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I echo the relief expressed by the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) about the uprating decision, and I am pleased to follow his speech. I will begin with some points about the way we uprate benefits and echo some of the important points made by the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), whose contribution to the Select Committee I appreciate.

We now know that legacy benefits will be claimed by some people until at least 2028. The Select Committee, in its report last July, called on the Department to improve its IT systems and increase the speed with which changes can be made to legacy benefit and state pension rates, and the lack of progress has been disappointing. Annual uprating based on the previous September’s inflation is perfectly reasonable when inflation is stable, but it is not reasonable in the current volatile circumstances. The Committee called for a shorter gap—the hon. Gentleman echoed this—between the inflation reference period and the uprating date, preferably using inflation data from the previous quarter, or possibly more recent still.

In the past year, the lag has caused real hardship. Benefits were uprated last April by the inflation rate of the previous September: 3.1%. By the time the uprating took effect, inflation was nearly 10%. The result has been benefits at the lowest real-terms level for 40 years, and a big surge in food bank demand. Like the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, I applaud the fact that the Government are honouring their obligations this year, and that the uprating will be 10% in time for the new financial year. That should prevent things becoming substantially worse for many in the coming year.

But it is not going to make things much better. Trussell Trust food banks gave out 1.3 million food parcels from April to September last year—more than in any previous six-month period, and 50% more than before the pandemic. At the Liaison Committee in December, the Prime Minister said that he would

“work very hard to deliver”

lower food bank demand by the end of this Parliament. I warmly welcome his adoption of that goal, but it will be achieved only if social security support is increased in real terms. What is the right level for the social security safety net? The Work and Pensions Committee plans in the near future to launch an inquiry into the adequacy of benefit levels, a subject that the hon. Member for Amber Valley spoke about. It seems to me that the safety net is now so inadequate that it is damaging the economic recovery: it is too low to do its job properly.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

The Chair of the Select Committee cites some damning statistics from the Trussell Trust. For all that food bank use is increasing overall, the inquiry by the all-party parliamentary group on ending the need for food banks, which the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) mentioned, has demonstrated that it went down when the £20 universal credit uplift was in place. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we should look at that?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I absolutely agree. That was the one point at which food bank demand fell, and of course it went straight back up once the £20 uplift was removed.

The level of the safety net is now too low for it to do its job properly from the standpoint of economic efficiency. People are being forced to accept unsuitable jobs, with no prospect of training or advancement, simply in order to subsist. That is one reason why the UK’s productivity record is so poor, and we will not deliver economic growth until we tackle that productivity failing. Interesting cross-party thinking on the matter is under way, for example in the work of the Poverty Strategy Commission set up and chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud. Our Committee’s inquiry will be able to draw on that and other work.

It is clear that the immediately preceding Administration —the interim Government, as the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys described it—would not have honoured those obligations. The right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) told us yesterday that her Administration was brought down by a left-wing conspiracy in the financial markets. It is not clear whether she regards my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) as having been responsible for organising that.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I knew I’d get the blame somehow.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

Actually, of course, it was brought down by economic reality. But I do not think that that Administration would have delivered an inflation uprating, so it is to the credit of the current Administration that they have done so.

I also welcome the increase in the benefit cap. The cap was introduced in 2013 and then reduced in 2016; it has never been increased at all. At the beginning of April it finally will be, thank goodness, but only by the overall rate of benefit uprating, which means that in effect it is a standstill increase. The impact of the benefit cap will not get worse in the coming year, but that will not affect the worsening impact of the cap’s falling in real terms every year since it was introduced.

[David Linden]

Will the right hon. Gentleman go one step further and join those of us who want the benefit cap not merely raised, but scrapped in its entirety because it is having such a detrimental impact on families across these islands?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

There is a strong case for that. At the time when the benefit cap was introduced, we were told that it was to prevent people from receiving more in benefits than they would if they were working, but any relationship with wage levels has long since disappeared.

In its briefing for this debate, the Child Poverty Action Group makes the point that the increase does not undo the damage of the cap having been frozen since 2016, but

“pushes families who would be in poverty anyway into even deeper poverty.”

It points out that 123,000 households are currently affected by the cap, including 107,000 households with children. That is one reason why, before the pandemic, when the data was most recently updated, 700,000 more children were in poverty than in 2010. The case for the cap needs to be reconsidered.

I want to pick up a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) made about the absence of an uprating to the local housing allowance, which is a very big problem. The LHA will be frozen for the coming year at the level at which it was set in 2020, even though rents are rising fast. When I raised the matter with the Prime Minister at the Liaison Committee in December, he replied that the uprating in 2020 represented

“a very significant cash uplift at the time, which it is appropriate to have maintained”,

echoing the wording of the ministerial statement from which my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North quoted.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I agree with the Chair of the Select Committee about the rapid increase in rents, particularly in the private sector—it is huge in the big cities. Does he think that the Government should at least reflect on the need for a freeze on private sector rents, and for some serious legislation to protect the now huge proportion of our country’s population who live in the private rented sector?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very powerful argument that the rate at which rents are now rising is devastating household finances in many parts of the country. All the 2020 increase—the much-vaunted “generous uplift”—did was raise the local housing allowance back to the level at which it had been set at the beginning of the decade: at the 30th percentile of local rents. In other words, it was raised to a level at which it covered three in 10 of the homes of that size in each local area, so even in 2020 it was not enough to cover the rent for seven out of 10 of the homes available. Since then, it has been frozen; by the end of the coming financial year it will have been frozen for four full years.

The consequences are becoming clear. Last week, the Combined Homelessness and Information Network reported that up to 3,570 people were sleeping rough in London from October to December 2022—a 21% rise on the same period in the previous year, with a 29% increase in the number of new rough sleepers. The chief executive of Crisis said:

“It is simply disgraceful that the numbers of people forced to sleep on the capital’s streets is very nearly back to the record levels we were seeing before the pandemic.”

Zoopla data shows large shortfalls for the cheapest properties by the end of last year: the shortfall for a one-bedroom home in Southwark had almost doubled in five months to £2,630 a year, while the shortfall for a three-bedroom home in Bromley had increased by more than £1,000 in five months to £3,555. At the start of 2022, some 1.7 million people—more than one in three renters in the private rented sector—were dependent on housing support to help them with their rent. Fewer than one in 12 private homes listed last year were affordable within the local housing allowance level; that figure reduced by a third in just five months last year.

The level of support is now being frozen in cash terms for a further year. Crisis said last week that it was

“particularly concerned that the lack of social housing and the growing gap between overheating rents and the frozen Local Housing Allowance is pushing people towards homelessness.”

That is the reality of the impact of the policy, which should urgently be reconsidered. Ministers say that they are committed to ending rough sleeping, but the policy is driving an increase in rough sleeping.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North for drawing attention to the Select Committee’s recommendation about the cap on the level of childcare support in universal credit. It is regrettable that there is nothing in the present measures that will address that, but I hope we might see something in the Budget on that front, given the cross-party concern about the inadequacy of childcare support at a time when we want to encourage people back into work.

It is a relief that a catch-up uprating is being delivered to the main rates of benefit, but we are a very long way from providing an adequate social security safety net. A large-scale repair job will be needed in the near future. There is growing evidence that disabled people are facing an especially tough time in the current cost of living crisis. Their situation, to which the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys was right to draw attention, has to be addressed.

Most immediately, however, I urge the Minister to take another look at the local housing allowance level. Ministers say that they are committed to eradicating rough sleeping, but it does not look as though they mean it. Keeping the local housing allowance frozen for a fourth year will drive a further surge in the number of rough sleepers, as well as very serious problems for hundreds of thousands of others.

Raising the State Pension Age to 68

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) on securing this Backbench Business debate, which gives us the chance to ask for the Government’s views on this topic of great importance and enormous public interest. I am delighted that the Pensions Minister, the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), and the former Pensions Minister, the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), are in their places on the Front Bench.

I agree with much of what the hon. Member for Amber Valley said. The idea of spending a third of adult life in retirement is a sensible yardstick to run with. He made the point, in passing, about the importance of implementing the recommendations of the auto-enrolment review, and I agree with him that that is important. We are repeatedly told that it will be done in the mid-2020s, but time to implement it before 2025 is either running out or has possibly already run out.

In my remarks, I will focus on the process we are in. I recall the wise words of David Cameron, who said:

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

He argued—rightly, in my view—for a culture of openness in government. One of the results of his view was the 2010 protocol on publication of all Government social research, which was most recently updated last year. It states:

“Principle 1: The products from government social research and analysis will be made publicly available”,

and that research should be published “promptly”, within 12 weeks of completion.

For a number of years, that was, to their credit, the Government’s approach. In 2017, when the first review of state pension age was undertaken for the Government by John Cridland—as the hon. Member for Amber Valley has pointed out—his report, and the report of the Government Actuary, were both published on 23 March 2017, nearly four months before the DWP’s own review was set out on 19 July 2017, shortly after the hon. Member for Hexham took up his former post as Pensions Minister in June 2017.

I have often expressed great regret that the Department, for some reason or other—perhaps reflecting a different approach across Government—has abandoned the practice set out by David Cameron and instead now resists publication of research and analysis, or delays it for as long as it possibly can. Preventing public discussion no doubt has the benefit of allowing Ministers to avoid having to answer difficult questions, but it has the disastrous drawback of worsening policy outcomes. The policy cannot be informed by public debate before the decisions are made, because the evidence that would allow a debate is not available. The Government publication protocol was watered down a little last year, but its essential gist remains unchanged. It says, for example:

“The primary purpose of social research commissioned and conducted by government is to inform…policy and delivery, but it also plays a role in wider policy debate.”

That is quite right, but, as we have discussed in the Chamber on various occasions, in the DWP the requirements of the protocol are simply ignored. They are not being fulfilled.

I have been hoping very much that the new ministerial team will turn over a new leaf and take a more enlightened approach. Indeed, the new Secretary of State has hinted that he is considering the advantages of greater openness. But here we have a flagrant example of his predecessor’s bad habits of hiding analysis and evidence until it is convenient to the Government to release them. Instead of publishing the evidence four months before the Government’s decision, as was done in 2017—around the time the former pensions Minister, the hon. Member for Hexham, was appointed—the Department is keeping the evidence hidden until it makes its announcement “early in 2023”. Presumably, as the hon. Member for Amber Valley has suggested, that will be at the time of the Budget next month.

In my brief contribution to this important debate, I mainly want to press the Minister to publish now both the report by the independent reviewer, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, which the Secretary of State received on 16 September last year—more than four months ago—and the related Government Actuary’s report, which was submitted to Ministers on 5 October. Publish them now. Why have they not been published already? What possible benefit can there be in keeping this important work and evidence hidden for all this time?

The Select Committee has published today an exchange of letters with the Minister on the subject. When asked why these reports are not being published before the Government’s announcement as they were for the 2017 review, the Minister, who is in her place, replied that

“this is a different publication schedule to the last review, the issues are still under consideration and so we think this approach is more appropriate.”

In other words, they appear to be saying, “We don’t want anyone to see the evidence until we have made up our mind. This is still under consideration, so we think it is not appropriate to publish the evidence.” Surely, there ought to be a public debate about all this before the Government make their decision, not afterwards. This instinct of hiding things, not disclosing them, and not complying with the requirements of the cross-Government protocol is very damaging to the Government’s ability to make good policy.

Surely, Ministers should take advantage of public debate to inform their decisions, rather than refusing to show anyone the evidence until after the Government have made up their mind. What has become of David Cameron’s belief in sunlight? We are talking here not about confidential advice to Ministers—there is no requirement to publish that—but rather about expert analysis that will eventually be published, and which sets out the evidence that will underpin the Government’s decision. Publish it now so that everybody can see it. The protocol says that

“analysis should be published promptly…as early as possible following agreement of the final output.”

So it should be. The recent independent review was announced in December 2021. The terms of reference said that it should explore what metrics the Government should take into account when considering how to set state pension age. They stated that it should include a consideration of recent trends in life expectancy in every part of the United Kingdom; whether it remained right for there to be a fixed proportion of adult life that people should, on average, expect to spend over state pension age, and what metrics would enable state pension costs, and the importance of sharing those fairly between generations, to be taken into account.

The Select Committee agreed months ago that once Baroness Neville-Rolfe’s review had been published, we would take evidence on it, including from her, as the hon. Member for Amber Valley said, before the Government announced their decision. Now that the Government are unwilling to publish the analysis before they announce their decision, we clearly cannot do that.

The Sun has reported that the Government plan to raise the state pension age from 67 to 68 as early as 2035, which will affect everyone who is 54 and under, instead of 10 years later, as set out in current legislation. Is that the right thing to do? Well, we need to see the evidence. The key evidence is about future projections of life expectancy. As we heard from the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), emerging evidence shows that the trend of rising life expectancy is not what it was before the pandemic.

One of the expert witnesses at this morning’s meeting of the Select Committee said, “Mortality seems to have peaked, because one reason why there was increasing mortality was that the second world war lifestyle was ironically quite healthy for people, and the numbers are now going down quite a lot.” We were discussing something else this morning, and I do not know what evidence the witness was drawing on there, but I do not know what evidence the Government will draw on either, because it has not been published and it should have been. There should be no delay in publishing it.

Cohort life expectancy statistics are produced every two years. A new set is expected this year. The latest, 2020-based projections show life expectancy at 65 still rising, but at a slower rate than in previous releases. Of course, the 2020 figures did not take any account of changes arising from the pandemic. The change in projection has prompted some commentators to call for the planned rises in the state pension age to be abandoned, or at least to be slowed.

Lane Clark & Peacock took the latest Office for National Statistics life expectancy projections and reran the 2017 calculations of the Government Actuary’s Department. They concluded that any move from 67 to 68 would not be needed until the mid-2060s rather than the mid-2040s, and certainly not by the late 2030s, as suggested by The Sun. They also suggested that the move from 66 to 67, which is currently scheduled to be phased in over two years from 2026, could be put back until the end of the 2040s. They went on to argue that if further ONS statistics show relatively lower life expectancy growth, that could imply further delays to planned increases, and perhaps even abandoning the planned rise to 67.

The former pensions Minister but two—I think— Steve Webb, who is now a partner at Lane Clark & Peacock said:

“The Government’s plans for rapid increases in state pension age have been blown out of the water by this new analysis. Even before the Pandemic hit, the improvements in life expectancy which we had seen over the last century had almost ground to a halt.”

Those are important public policy questions. They should be debated in Parliament and among the public before the Government announce their decision, so that that public and parliamentary debate can inform the Government’s decision. We should not just see the evidence after the Government have announced what they plan to do, because changing the Government’s mind at that point will not happen.

A wide public debate should take place now, but it cannot happen unless the independent review and the Government Actuary’s report are published before the announcement is made. I ask the Minister to resist the temptation to keep the documents hidden for even longer and instead to remember the wise words of David Cameron, and to be open and publish those two key documents.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Laura Trott)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) for raising this important issue, and all the other Members who have contributed to the debate.

The Government remain committed to ensuring that older people can live with the dignity and respect they deserve, and I absolutely reaffirm that the state pension is and will remain the foundation of state support for older people. As has already been pointed out today, changes in the state pension age have been made in a series of Acts by successive Governments from 1995—when the state pension ages of men and women were equalised—onwards, following public consultations and extensive debates in both Houses.

The state pension age is currently 66, and will increase to 67 in 2026-28. As was mentioned by the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda), Labour legislated for it to increase to 68 in 2044-46, but, following the Cridland review of 2017, the current Government policy is to bring the increase to 68 forward to 2037-39. That is the baseline; we are required under law to review it every six years, and that is what is now being undertaken.

As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley, the coalition Government of 2010 to 2015 were committed to the “core principle” that people should spend, on average,

“up to one third of their adult life drawing a State Pension.”

They were also committed to giving individuals at least 10 years’ notice of any changes affecting them. The first review of the state pension age following the Pensions Act 2014 was undertaken in 2017, informed by both the Government Actuary’s report and the independent report undertaken by John Cridland. As I have set out, Cridland recommended bringing forward the increase in the state pension age to 68 from 2044 to 2026, as set out in legislation, to 2037 to 2039.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

The two documents from 2017 to which the Minister referred were published four months before the Government’s announcement. Why have the Government not published the documents before their announcement this time around, and will she do so now?

[Laura Trott]

I had a suspicion that the right hon. Gentleman might bring that up. As he rightly pointed out, I have written to him today to explain the rationale behind this, but I will confirm that both documents will be published in full. I look forward to discussing them with his Committee in due course.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I just want to know why they have not been published. What is the public interest in keeping these things hidden?

[Laura Trott]

As I have said, they will be published in full. On the timing of publication, there is work going on in Government to undertake the review. Once it is finished the documents will be published.

The 2017 review was based on a recommendation to aim for “up to 32%” as the average proportion of adult life spent in receipt of state pension. The review used 2014-based life expectancy data. The Government accepted those recommendations, subject to a further review, before tabling the requisite legislative amendments. The savings from bringing forward this rise to 68 have already been included in published fiscal forecasts.

On 14 December 2021, the Government launched the second periodic review of the state pension age, and work is now under way to complete it, as required by legislation. The review must be published by May 2023, in accordance with section 27 of the Pensions Act 2014. At the autumn statement, the Chancellor committed to concluding the review in early 2023.

As part of the second review, the Secretary of State is considering evidence from two independent reports. The first, a report from the Government Actuary, assesses the latest life expectancy projections from all regions of the UK. There has been a lot of talk about life expectancy today, so I want to put on record the fact that the most recent projections from the Office for National Statistics show a slower rate of improvement in life expectancy than those that informed the Pensions Act 2014 and the Pension Schemes Act 2017. Nevertheless, despite the slower improvement rate, ONS projections continue to show increasing life expectancy over time, and the number of people over state pension age is expected to continue to rise. I can also confirm for the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) that the review will consider the latest recommendations, as well as a wide range of other evidence, before reaching any conclusions about the state pension age.

The second report that will be taken into account is an independent report by Baroness Neville-Rolfe, which will consider recent trends in life expectancy and the range of metrics that we could use when setting the state pension age, including the metrics mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley. We will publish both documents in full. With respect to the question of whether Baroness Neville-Rolfe will appear before the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, that is a matter for the Committee and for her.

Alongside examining the implications of the latest life expectancy data, the Government review is assessing the costs of an ageing society and future state pension expenditure, as well as considering labour market changes and people’s ability and opportunities to work up to state pension age, bearing in mind recent trends in life expectancy.

My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley highlighted the position of those who cannot continue to work. The review will evaluate the impact of previous changes to the state pension age for all individuals, including those with long-term health conditions or disability. The Government continue to provide substantial support for people who are unable to work.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) made some important points about age discrimination. The Government’s business champion for older workers, Andy Briggs, spearheads the Government’s work to promote the benefits of older workers and multigenerational workforces across England, influencing them strategically and by offering practical advice. I will ensure that my hon. Friend’s points about discrimination are passed on to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

The review will aim to keep the right balance between affordability, sustainability and fairness between generations. The review has not yet concluded—it is very important to emphasise that, given some of the comments today—and I will not pre-empt its outcome. The Government are committed to ensuring that older people have dignity and security in later life, regardless of where in the UK they are living. The Government introduced further targeted support, including cost of living payments of up to £900 for the most vulnerable households and an additional £1 billion, including Barnett impact, to enable the extension of the household support fund in England in the next financial year. Since 2010, the full yearly amount of the basic state pension has risen by over £2,300 in cash terms. That is £790 higher than if it had been uprated by prices, and £945 more than if it had been uprated by earnings. For the first time, from April 2023, the full rate of the new state pension is worth over £10,000 per year.

Automatic enrolment is having a transformational effect on private savings. Over 10.8 million people have been automatically enrolled in a workplace pension, helping to deliver about an additional £33 billion into pension savings in real terms in 2021 compared with 2012. The hon. Member for North East Fife mentioned the PHSO inquiry. She will know that that is ongoing, so it would be inappropriate for me to comment on it until it concludes.

The Government are committed to ensuring that the state pension continues to provide the foundation for people’s retirement income and are proud of the support they have given pensioners since 2010. I welcome today’s debate and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley. As I have outlined, the Government take the setting of the state pension age very seriously. I look forward to being able to discuss this matter further—I am sure we will—when the Government finally publish their second review.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

19. What assessment he has made of the impact of real-terms reductions in local housing allowance rates on families.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)]

In 2020, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Government boosted the local housing allowance by almost £1 billion, taking it to the 30th percentile of rents. For those where there is a shortfall, the discretionary housing payments arrangements are available. We should all be mindful of the expense of the support for housing, which is running at £30 billion a year, and is projected to rise to £50 billion in 2050.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

Rightmove reported last autumn that rents in London had increased by more than 16% in a year, yet, as the Secretary of State has said, housing support through local housing allowance has been frozen since 2020. Will Ministers look again in the Budget at the level of local housing allowance for the coming financial year?

[Mel Stride]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly valid point, but he needs to see this issue in the round. My fellow Ministers have outlined at some length the cost of living support payments that were made available last year and that were announced in the autumn statement and will be available from April onwards. I have already mentioned discretionary housing payments, with £1.6 billion of support since 2011. There is also the household support fund, which gained an extra £1 billion for 2023-24. I look forward to appearing before his Committee at the end of March, where no doubt we can discuss these matters in greater detail.

Benefit Sanctions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2022 Westminster Hall

[Chris Stephens]

I thank my good and hon. Friend for that intervention. I will mention similar specific case studies, and there are clear questions for the Department to answer on this matter.

Going back to the Work and Pensions Committee 2018 report, it criticised the fact that a sanction incurred under one conditionality regime continues to apply even if the claimant’s circumstances change and they are no longer able or required to look for work. The report said that the sanction serves no purpose in such circumstances, and the Work and Pensions Committee recommended that it be cancelled. It further criticised the fact that the decision to impose a sanction is made by an independent decision maker

“who has never met the claimant and who cannot be expected to understand fully the circumstances that led to them to fail to comply.”

It therefore recommended that work coaches should be able to recommend

“whether a sanction should be imposed”.

The Government responded to the report and each of the Work and Pensions Committee’s recommendations in January 2019. They agreed to evaluate the effectiveness of reforms to welfare conditionality and sanctions, and said that it would be focused on whether sanctions within the universal credit regime are effective at supporting claimants to search for work. The Government said they would look to publish the results in spring 2019, but that did not happen, and DWP Ministers were still saying in July 2020 that the Department was committed to conducting an evaluation and that it would look to so by the end of 2020. In January 2022, however, The Guardian reported that the Department for Work and Pensions had refused a freedom of information request from Dr David Webster to release a copy of the evaluation.

In February, it was reported to the Lords that the Department had not published its evaluation of the effectiveness of universal credit sanctions because it lacked robust legacy data. The former Secretary of State told the Work and Pensions Committee—in fact, it was in answer to the Chair, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), who is present—that she had noted that the evaluation had been commissioned by a previous Administration, and she explained that the notion of a sanction acts not only through its imposition on a claimant but, importantly, through its effect as a deterrent. That raises a couple of questions.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his points about the Select Committee’s report, and I pay tribute to him for his work on this subject. I understand that his membership on the Committee will shortly come to an end, but I thank him very much for all his work.

The hon. Gentleman will have heard the new Secretary of State say that he will want to have a fresh look at whether some of the things that the Department has refused to publish in the past should have been published. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this particular report should be high on that list of priorities?

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that matter and it is a concern. There are 11 armed forces leaders and 50 champions across the DWP. I would be very happy to look at this particular case, if he were able to raise it directly with me.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

We were grateful for the answers that the Secretary of State gave at the Work and Pensions Committee meeting last week, and we are looking forward to him returning on 11 January. He has been pressed this afternoon, repeatedly and rightly, about local housing allowance, and I have heard his answers to those questions. Next year will be the fourth year that the local housing allowance has been frozen at its current level, during a period when rents have risen sharply. Does he recognise that the case for rebasing local housing allowance, so that it reflects actual local rents, is becoming a very pressing one?

[Mel Stride]

Once again, I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the opportunity to appear before his Committee last week. He raises again the LHA. In 2020, it was, of course, raised to be in line with the local 30th percentile of rents at a cost of approaching £1 billion. He is absolutely right that, clearly, the higher the rate of inflation, and house rental inflation in particular, the more pressure that is put on that particular allowance. All I can undertake to do is to look at this matter very closely the next time I review these particular benefits, which will be in about a year’s time.

UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I welcome the initiative that my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) has taken in applying for and obtaining this debate. I want to pick up on a number of important points that she made in her excellent speech, but I will begin by commenting on the problem that the Government have over engagement with disabled people.

We know that poverty is particularly focused among families living with disability. That is very clear in the work of the Social Metrics Commission, chaired by the noble Baroness Stroud, who was the special adviser to the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) when he was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, so this is not a partisan point at all. Poverty is focused among those families, so it is not surprising that disabled people, from time to time, have cause to criticise the benefits system.

In the last few years, the Department for Work and Pensions has tended to respond to that by pulling up the drawbridge and refusing to talk properly to people, which led to the fiasco of the disability strategy to which my hon. Friend referred. It was launched with some fanfare in July last year but declared unlawful in January this year because of the failure to consult disabled people. As far as I know, it is still languishing—stuck and going nowhere—as a consequence.

The Social Security Advisory Committee is appointed by the Government and made up of experts, not politicians. It is chaired by Stephen Brien, who was one of the original architects, with the Centre for Social Justice, of universal credit. The committee produced a useful paper in December 2020 called, “How DWP involves disabled people when developing or evaluating programmes that affect them”—a slightly long-winded title, but it is clear what it is about. It says:

“DWP officials themselves acknowledge that the Department is not trusted by many disabled people and by some of the organisations who are led by, or work with, disabled people. Our own research confirmed this. Some of the individuals we spoke to did not believe that the Department engaged with disabled people’s organisations or sought views from individual disabled people. There was also a widespread belief that DWP would not represent accurately disabled people’s views when they did seek them.”

The committee therefore recommended that:

“DWP should develop a clear protocol for engagement…It should cover both national and local engagement”.

That is a clear, straightforward, constructive and helpful suggestion to try to overcome that serious problem, but the Department’s response was simply to reject the recommendation.

The committee also recommended that the Department should routinely report on its engagement with disabled people, but the Department rejected that as well. It said:

“We believe that our existing reporting provides sufficient information on our engagement with disabled people and stake- holders.”

I must say, however, that that is not the view of disabled people, as a Conservative Member of the House of Lords, Lord Shinkwin, told the Work and Pensions Committee that

“the DWP is handling its engagement with disabled people badly”

and, he said, with “palpable disrespect”. We now know that it is not the view of the courts either, hence the fiasco over the disability strategy.

The Department commissioned a report from a respected external agency to investigate disabled people’s experiences of the benefits system. It talked to a large number of disabled people in carrying out that research. When asking if they would take part in the study, it told each of them that the results would be published. When Ministers saw the report, however, they decided not to publish it, which is a clear breach of the cross-Government protocol on social research that requires such documents to be published. The Select Committee used its powers to obtain a copy of the report from its authors and published it, so that it reached the public domain.

It is true, of course, that being open about criticisms and difficulties exposes Ministers to awkward questions, but refusing open discussion and trying to keep things secret or keep a lid on them does far more damage than letting such debates take place in the open. I warmly welcome the new Minister and his colleagues in the ministerial team to their posts and I hope that they will take the opportunity to have a fresh look at how they deal with, talk to and engage with disabled people and their organisations. The practice of the team led by the previous Secretary of State was unnecessarily disastrous—there was no need to try to hide all those things. It would have been far less damaging to be open and to, yes, sometimes have a robust exchange. To try to keep it all hidden was very damaging and counterproductive.

As a first step, we have been told by the Department that it will not publish the number of work capability assessments that it carries out each month—I have no idea why; it is absolutely basic and fundamental data. I suppose the reason is that, if people know how many are being carried out, they can ask awkward questions about what is going on. That is another example of that damaging and counterproductive attempt to bury what is really happening.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I am sorry that I came late to the debate; I was delayed in traffic after another meeting. I remind my right hon. Friend that some of the concerns expressed by disabled organisations over the years commenced largely around the WCAs. I remember that he, I and several other hon. Members simply asked the DWP whether it was monitoring, for example, the consequences and impact of WCAs on certain vulnerable people and the suicides that were taking place. It denied us that knowledge at the time, so it is understandable that a number of disability organisations are sceptical about its role.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct that this has quite a long history, but my sense is that it has got considerably worse in the last few years and the Department has stopped publishing things that obviously should be published and answering perfectly reasonable questions. As a result, it has badly damaged its reputation with disabled people. I hope that the new ministerial team will want to rebuild those links and rebuild trust.

My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea made some important points about the disability employment gap, which has increased in the last two quarters. Many disabled people would like to work but cannot. The pandemic has had a damaging impact, because since then, there has been a steep rise in the number of people who are out of work on health grounds. We urgently need to be able to support disabled people who would like to work into jobs, because that is one of the key ways to tackle the current labour shortage. We can take advantage of that big opportunity.

In July last year, the Select Committee published its report on the disability employment gap. Shortly before the 2015 general election, David Cameron announced a target to halve the disability employment gap, but the target was scrapped shortly after that general election. We want it reinstated. Our report called for a radical overhaul of employment support for disabled people. The big national Work and Health programme is helpful but it is not working for many people. The truth is that, as we can all recognise, smaller specialist providers are often best placed to deliver the help that is needed. People have to be on the ground locally to know who can do the best job; that kind of support cannot be commissioned from Whitehall.

We proposed that funding for this employment support should be devolved. Where the capacity exists, we want groups of local authorities, probably based on the new NHS integrated care system boundaries, to be responsible for commissioning and delivering employment support for disabled people. The Department should allocate funding, monitor performance and publish detailed comparative performance data, but it should not deliver the support, which should be closely integrated with the local health service, colleges and voluntary sector groups. In its response to our report, the Department did not reject that idea, but it has not moved in that direction at all since; I hope that it will.

My hon. Friend was right about Access to Work, which is vital to overcoming work-related obstacles resulting from disability. It is a lifeline for many, but it is not well enough known. Many employers do not know about it and it is dogged, as she said, by a bureaucratic and extraordinarily cumbersome application process that puts people off and leaves many in limbo. Once they have applied, they sometimes have to wait for quite a long time to find out what support they will receive. If somebody benefits from Access to Work in one job and then changes job, they have to go back to square one. There should be a passporting arrangement, as my hon. Friend argued. If they apply for a new job at the moment, their potential new employer cannot be certain what, if any, help Access to Work will provide.

The Minister’s predecessor told the Select Committee about a planned “digital transformation” for Access to Work, which I hope will address those obvious failings, and I hope the Department will involve disabled people themselves in the redesign of the Access to Work programme. I would be particularly grateful if the Minister, in winding up, could give us an update on the progress of that initiative.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

The right hon. Member is making some powerful points. Does he agree that, where there is a cap on individual benefits through the Access to Work scheme, that stops some people getting everything they deserve, while money for that purpose is left lying in other pools?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

The hon. Lady is right and my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea made that point as well. I think that is unhelpful and should be removed.

We also called in our report for larger employers to be required to publish the proportion of their employees who are disabled, and my hon. Friend referred, rightly, to disability pay gap reporting. Like her, the Select Committee thinks it is high time for a rigorous evaluation of the well-intentioned Disability Confident scheme.

For our current inquiry, we conducted a survey of personal independence payment and employment and support allowance claimants. My hon. Friend referred to the experiences of some of those applicants. We are going to publish our report from that inquiry soon, but it was striking how many respondents to that survey said the assessments had damaged their mental health. In describing the assessments, many respondents said that they were humiliating, undignified or even, in some cases, traumatic. There is a serious PIP application backlog at the moment.

[Marsha De Cordova]

My right hon. Friend is making an interesting point about the negative and long-lasting impact that the assessment frameworks for employment and support allowance and PIP are having. Does he agree that now is the time to overhaul those assessment frameworks to something that is co-created with disabled people, is less intrusive and focuses on providing the essential support and extra costs of living support that are needed?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I agree. There is a big job to be done, and involving disabled people in doing it would be an important part of the solution.

There is also an industrial injuries disablement benefit backlog at the moment. It remains the case, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, that when people appeal against an adverse PIP decision, the great majority win their appeal, which shows pretty clearly that there is something going badly wrong.

The Department did introduce some welcome, imaginative flexibility in assessments during the pandemic. I pay tribute to those who came up with some new ways of doing things—telephone and video assessments—when obviously the old ways could not be applied during the pandemic, and who took advantage of those long term. It is important to maintain flexibility. For some people, being able to be assessed at home over the telephone or via a video link avoids enormous distress and is a real boon, but for others it is important to be able to talk about their impairment face to face and they are happy to travel to an assessment centre to do so. I do not think there is a single solution here, but I think the flexibility that has been introduced of late will be valuable.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission is in negotiation with the Department on a section 23 agreement over the protection of vulnerable claimants, arising from grave concern, which we have heard about already, about claimants who have been badly treated by the Department too often having lost their benefits or being sanctioned when the issue was, for example, a known and serious mental health problem. Too many benefit claimants, as we have been reminded, have taken their lives in these circumstances. So I welcome the initiative that the Equality and Human Rights Commission has taken, and very much hope that the section 23 agreement will be concluded and published soon.

The new ministerial team has the chance to establish a new, much more positive relationship with disabled people, based on openness in place of defensiveness. In welcoming the new Minister to his post, I urge him to take that opportunity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Stephen Timms]

The Work and Pensions Committee visited Glasgow and met senior officers of Social Security Scotland. There is a great deal in the approach for which the hon. Lady is advocating. She is right and the Minister would do well to take a look at that.

[Marion Fellows]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I have spoken to many people who were employed by the DWP in Scotland. They are able to compare and contrast the two regimes and they are so pleased to be working for Social Security Scotland.

Those with disabilities are fearful of being left behind once again, with the return to the parliamentary agenda of the British Bill of Rights Bill and the corresponding abolition of the Human Rights Act, if that goes ahead. Its worrying re-emergence rekindles the fears of many disability organisations regarding the removal of statutory protections for those with disabilities. At a time when we should be strengthening the protections in place for those with disabilities to ensure that they can live with as few barriers as possible, the Government risk regressing the regulatory regime for disability rights. The Human Rights Act offers a critically important mechanism for recourse for those with disabilities; abolishing it would weaken avenues for those with disabilities to enforce their rights. I would welcome the Minister telling me that I am wrong and that that will not happen, as I think we all would.

The British Institute of Human Rights has drawn my attention to a story highlighting the necessity of challenging inequality for disabled people using human rights legislation. Bryn was 60 years old and lived in supported living. He had learning disabilities, epilepsy, was non-communicative and blind. Staff at the home became concerned that Bryn had a heart condition and called a doctor from the local NHS surgery, who came to visit. Bryn had an independent mental capacity advocate who was supporting him. The advocate attended a multidisciplinary meeting to represent Bryn. At the meeting, the GP stated that he would not be arranging a heart scan for Bryn as

“he has a learning disability and no quality of life”.

Bryn’s advocate challenged that by raising Bryn’s right to life, under article 2 of the Human Rights Act, and his right to be free from discrimination, under article 14. The advocate asked the doctor whether he would arrange a heart scan if anyone else in the room was in that situation. The GP said yes and then agreed to the scan. The Human Rights Act gave the advocate the legal grounds to challenge the discrimination and take steps to protect Bryn’s life. Sadly, Bryn passed away because of his heart condition before any treatment could take place. I would like us all to reflect on that. I thank the British Institute of Human Rights for bringing that to my attention.

Clause 5 of the rights removal Bill destroys positive obligations, which is the positive duty on public officials to protect people from harm. The new Bill allows public bodies to refuse to act to safeguard people like Bryn, and to raise financial resources or operational priorities as the reasoning behind not taking action. Disability rights groups across the UK are gravely concerned that public officials will not take proactive steps to protect disabled people from harm, due to discriminatory attitudes or the resources required to protect that person, and that the rights removal Bill removes accountability for that. That is very dangerous and increases the likelihood of more awful stories like Bryn’s occurring—[Interruption.] I want to complete these points, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I beg your indulgence—[Interruption.] You are shaking your head.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I would be happy to meet him to discuss those issues further. I am determined that Ministers will have constructive working relationships with colleagues across Parliament, and with third sector organisations and international organisations pertinent to this work, to ensure that we deliver the best outcomes possible. I would be happy to have a conversation with him about the particular point that he has raised.

We also made similar changes to universal credit and employment and support allowance in April this year.

One particular Bill reflects positively on the cross-party constructive work that has gone on. The hon. Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) brought the British Sign Language Bill to Parliament and worked constructively with Ministers to deliver it, including with my right hon. Friends the Members for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) and for Norwich North. The Bill passed into law earlier this year and will recognise BSL as a language of England, Wales and Scotland in its own right. It is also supported by a duty on the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to regularly report on what each relevant Government Department has done to promote or facilitate the use of British Sign Language in its communications with the public.

We laid regulations in the summer to allow more health- care professionals to certify fit notes in addition to doctors. Nurses, occupational therapists, pharmacists and physiotherapists can all legally certify fit notes, reducing the pressure on NHS doctors, particularly GPs. This followed legislative changes in the spring, which removed the need for fit notes to be signed in ink.

On World Mental Health Day in October, we announced the expansion of a joint programme by DWP, DHSC and NHS England—with expenditure of £122 million—to expand the provision of employment advisers in improving access to psychological therapy services across England.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

rose—

[Tom Pursglove]

I am conscious that I need to make a bit of progress, but I will gladly give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

As the Minister is running through the things that the Government are doing, can he clarify what their intentions are on the national disability strategy? That was stuck in the courts in January. Do the Government intend to move that forward and, if so, when?

[Tom Pursglove]

I will get to that very point. It is one that I want to reflect on briefly in my remarks. I will get there and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will welcome what I have to say.

This voluntary service will recruit an additional 700 employment advisers to support people with common mental health conditions to improve their mental health, while also helping them to stay in or find work.

A key priority for this Government is increasing disability employment and reducing the disability employment gap. We have heard strong representations for that important objective across the House this afternoon. The Government have a range of programmes and initiatives that are supporting disabled people and those with health conditions to start, stay and succeed in work. This includes disability employment advisers providing specialist expertise and upskilling work coaches in our Jobcentres. The schemes include Access to Work and Disability Confident; and employment programmes such as local supported employment, where we are working in partnership with local authorities to support adults with autism and learning disabilities.

As a Government, we are committed to supporting all people with a disability to lead fulfilled, independent lives. That is a mission that the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, the Secretary of State and I are determined to deliver on. We are delivering a wide range of actions that will positively impact the everyday lives of disabled people—from education to transport, from housing to leisure. We are also committed to challenging unhelpful perceptions of disabled people—all changes that can make a big difference and all changes that feed into enabling disabled people to thrive.

The latest disability employment figures show an increase of 240,000 on the year and an overall increase of 2 million in work since the same quarter in 2013. Our improving lives strategy set out the Government’s goal to see 1 million more disabled people in work between 2017 and 2027, in line with the 2017 manifesto commitment. The figures released for quarter 1 2022 showed that, between quarter 1 2017 and quarter 1 2022, the number of disabled people in employment increased by 1.3 million, meaning that the goal was met after only five years. Our goal to reduce the disability employment gap remains. We will continue to galvanise action across Government and outside Government to ensure that we are ambitious about the employment of disabled people and people with health conditions. It was to that end that, last week, I went to the Jobcentre in Stratford to learn more about the initiative that we are rolling out across the country to deliver additional work coach time. That is designed specifically to help support people into work, where possible, meeting those individual needs and widening the access and availability of work coach support, which is very welcome.

Returning to the theme of innovation, assistive technology is key to our ambition for the UK to be the most accessible place to live and work. We are taking vital first steps towards our overall aim to make our country the most accessible place in the world to live and to work with technology. Advances in technology aimed at increasing disabled people’s participation in society can result in trickle-down benefits for wider society. Some advances can be especially beneficial for disabled people, as I heard about at an excellent event that was held in Parliament only last week.

To capitalise on the many advances in technology, we need to translate what is cross-party political enthusiasm and the Government’s overarching policy commitments into well-designed, evidence-based, and funded initiatives. As a first step to achieve that, we are carrying out an ATech needs assessment. That will explore the needs, demands and impacts on the lives of disabled people and help us to better understand the market capacity for procuring and providing ATech.

Also on the theme of innovation, businesses have an important role to play. Important partnerships have been formed with our disability and access ambassadors. These are senior business leaders who use their influential status to push forward improvements to the accessibility and quality of services and facilities for disabled people. New ambassadors were appointed in July 2021 and in January 2022. In total, they cover 19 private sector industries, from advertising to housing. I am committed to working with these ambassadors to shine a light on their sectors to ensure that disabled people have increased opportunities to participate in a modern, inclusive British society. I thank the ambassadors for all the good work that they do.

I now wish to briefly touch on a few of the points raised by my colleagues here, mindful of the wide variety points that have been raised during the debate. On the point about inclusive and cumulative impact assessments of social security policies on disabled people, in line with the public sector equality duty, the Government carefully consider the equality impacts of policies on those shared and protected characteristics. That is in line with both their legal obligations and their strong commitment to fairness.

On the cost of living, we have had many debates about the comprehensive support that is being provided by this Government to help to address the pressing challenges that many families across the country understandably feel at the present time. That help and support should be seen in the round. As I am responsible for overseeing this, I know that the current latest batch of cost of living payments are being made at the present time. That is welcome support and, no doubt, we will have the opportunity to talk more about cost of living support in the debates that we will have in the weeks and months ahead.

On energy, the warm home discount scheme currently provides around 3 million low-income and vulnerable households across Great Britain with a £150 rebate off their winter energy bill. We have extended the scheme to 2025-26, expanded the scheme to support 800,000 more households and reformed the scheme in England and Wales to provide more rebates automatically and better target households that are in fuel poverty.

On the national disability strategy and the court judgment, what I can say at this stage is that the UK Government strongly disagree with the UN inquiry’s findings and we were disappointed with the NDS ruling, which we are appealing. We continue to be fully committed to the convention and will be publishing our response shortly.

On personal independence payment appeals and work capability assessments, since PIP was introduced, we have made 4.5 million decisions, and only 4% of those have been changed after tribunal hearings. For employment and support allowance, there have been 3.3 million completed WCAs on ESA claims between October 2013 and December 2021, 3% have gone to complete an appeal of a fit-for-work decision and 2% have been overturned. But I am not complacent. I am determined that we will do everything we can to ensure that we focus on quality decision making and that decisions are got right first time.

There were also, rightly, comments made about Access to Work, which is a very effective scheme in enabling people to access employment opportunities and to sustain that employment. Access to Work developed the health adjustment passport, which has been rolled out across Jobcentre Plus. To support the transition from education into employment, Access to Work has delivered a passport pilot in universities. Both have received positive feedback and we are keen to go further. That is an area that I am looking closely at. Again, if colleagues have any observations or ideas, I would be keen to hear them so that I can reflect on them as part of my consideration.

The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) raised the issue of taxi and private hire drivers and disability access, particularly for individuals who are blind. Under the Equality Act 2010, private hire drivers and taxis have a duty to carry guide dogs and assistance dogs at no extra cost to the passenger. On accessible transport more generally, officials will deliver a review of the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000 by the end of 2023, which will ensure that future decisions on accessibility standards are based on an updated understanding of passenger needs.

I also want to touch on hate crime, a subject that came across strongly in a number of the contributions. Speaking as someone who was a former policing Minister and victims Minister, this is an area that I feel very strongly about, as I think we all do. We must come together as one House of Commons and as a society in calling out hate crime wherever we see it, in whatever form it takes. The UK Government have asked the Law Commission to review existing criminal law for harmful communications both online and offline. Following the Law Commission’s final report, the Government are taking forward the recommended harmful communications, false communications and threatening communications offences through the Online Safety Bill.

In my role as the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, I am committed to driving forward the disability agenda across Government, tackling the barriers that disabled people face.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

Is the Minister going to come back to the subject of the national disability strategy and tell us what the Government’s intentions are on that?

[Tom Pursglove]

I could speak at some length on that, but I think I will write to the right hon. Gentleman as Chairman of the Committee and provide him with an update on where we are in relation to that particular point. I think that is the best way of addressing that question.

I assure the House that I will continue to work with ministerial colleagues across Government, especially as convener and new chairman of the ministerial disability champions, who were appointed in summer 2020 at the request of the then Prime Minister to help to drive progress across Government to help to improve the lives of disabled people. That commitment remains. The ministerial disability champions meet regularly throughout the year. They act as personal leads within their respective Departments, encouraging joined-up working across Departments and committing to championing disabled people.

I am keen to look at, consider and try to advance particular projects that colleagues and wider society feel would be beneficial in improving things for disabled people. I will also continue to meet with disabled people, disabled people’s organisations and disability charities across the UK, so many of whom are inspirational with the work that they do and in the example that they set.

Ensuring the voices of disabled people are heard is a priority for this Government. We continue to work closely with disabled people and disabled people’s organisations to ensure we hear from the full diversity of the community. Only this week I have met the Disability Charities Consortium, Disability Benefits Consortium and DPO Forum England to discuss issues impacting the lives of disabled people. I hope that that reassures the House about my determination, commitment and willingness to engage thoroughly and extensively. No one person has a monopoly on good ideas about the next steps we should take.

The disability unit runs multiple stakeholder networks to support and supplement Government engagement with disabled people and their organisations. Departments across Government also have their own networks specific to their policy focus. The unit is currently considering how we can strengthen our engagement with the sector even further. We stay cognisant of opportunities to consult and co-create with the sector in designing and delivering impactful policies to improve disabled people’s lives, which is our ultimate aim.

Ahead of this year’s UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities, I wish to emphasise our ongoing commitment to drive forward inclusion for disabled people at all levels of British society and continue to be global leaders in the disability space. I know that that is a firm commitment that we share across this House.

State Pension Triple Lock

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

As I have set out, we are facing what is being called a Budget. It is a major fiscal event and many decisions will be taken within it. It would not be right for a member of the Government at the Dispatch Box to prejudge what may be included in it.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State to his first Department for Work and Pensions debate. Surely he is not suggesting that the current Prime Minister was irresponsible when he said last May that the triple lock would be honoured for next April. Will he confirm that, if the triple lock is not honoured for next April, it will be almost without precedent, going back 50 years or more, for the state pension not to be uprated at least in line with inflation?

[Mel Stride]

I welcome the question from the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee. As a former Pensions Minister, he will know that, in the situation we are in at the moment, right hard up against a major fiscal event that is about to set out major tax and spending decisions, it would simply not be right, as I have said on countless occasions, for any member of the Government to prejudge and pre-empt the measures that the Chancellor will be coming forward with.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster). I thank him for the help he gave me when he was a Minister, and I agree with what he says about pension credit. I think the key is probably for local government to work more closely with central Government, because local councils have the pensioner income data to work out whether pensioners are entitled to pension credit. If we could improve co-operation, judgments could be made much more automatically.

I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) that this debate is happening only because of the catastrophic Government blunders in September. Before then, there was no issue; there was a very clear commitment from the then Chancellor, who is now Prime Minister, that the triple lock would be honoured. Unfortunately, what happened in September has created the very difficult situation that the Secretary of State rightly described.

It is important to remember that there has already been a big real-terms fall this year in the value not only of the state pension, but of working-age benefits, which were increased by 3.1% in April when inflation was at nearly 10%. That was justified at the time on the basis that that is how the usual uprating formula works: pensions and benefits are uprated in April by the rate of inflation in the previous September. The then Chancellor acknowledged that the effects would need to be addressed next April, so he gave an assurance in May that the same formula would be applied again for next April’s uprating. We now know that pensions and benefits will be uprated by 10.1%, which was the rate of inflation in September.

On pensions, as we have been reminded, there is also a Conservative manifesto commitment. As I said in my intervention on the Secretary of State, if the promise on pensions is not kept next April and pensions are instead uprated by less than the rate of inflation, it will be almost without precedent.

Since 1977, there has been a statutory obligation, defined in a variety of ways, to uprate in line with inflation. It has been honoured every year since then except 1986, when the rate of inflation was 1.1% and the decision was made to uprate the state pension by 1%—0.1 percentage points less. Apart from that, there has been uprating by at least the rate of inflation every single year. To depart from that approach now, on the scale that has apparently been considered recently, would be absolutely without precedent in 50 years. In November 1980, inflation was at 16.5%; the state pension was uprated by 16.5%. In April 1991, inflation was at 10.9%; the state pension was uprated by 10.9%.

It is clear why there has been that commitment all the way through: because people who have given a lifetime of work and have retired from working have already made their contribution, so there is nothing that they can do to make up the difference if the value of their state pension falls. I think we all recognise that there is an obligation on the state—a social contract—to maintain the value of the state pension. That contract should not be breached as a result of the Government making catastrophic errors in their management of the economy in September.

The considerations with working-age benefits are different. They have also been sharply reduced in real terms this year, but over the years they have frequently not been uprated in line with inflation. As a cumulative result, according to the Library, they are now at their lowest level in real terms in the 40 years since 1982-83. Trussell Trust food banks gave out 2.1 million emergency food parcels in 2021-22; they gave out 60,000 in 2010-11. They have reported that demand in August and September this year was 46% higher than last year. Why is the economy failing so many people? How many more are the Government willing to push into destitution?

The annual family resources survey has started to collect data on food insecurity to get a handle on what is going on with food banks. We now have results for the first two years, 2019-20 and 2020-21; the Secretary of State and I had an exchange about them at Work and Pensions questions recently. Food insecurity among universal credit claimants fell from 43% in 2019-20 to 27% in 2020-21, reflecting the £20 universal credit uplift introduced in March 2020, just between those two financial years. Now that that has been taken away, food insecurity will have shot up again. We will have to raise the level of universal credit to address the current mass dependence on charitable food banks.

[Tahir Ali (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is outrageous that we now have more branches of food banks than of McDonald’s?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

It is a great shame on us all that so many people are dependent on charitable food banks, and the numbers are still rising. We certainly must not fail to uprate social security, universal credit and pensions in line with inflation in April, because otherwise there will be yet another big surge in demand. That is why it is so important for the Prime Minister to honour the promise that he made as Chancellor.

There is one more uprating we need that cannot be ignored. The benefit cap was introduced in 2012. At the time, it was based on the level of median earnings. It has never been uprated. It has changed only once: in 2016, it was reduced. Its value has lost any connection with the earnings level to which it was supposed to be linked when it was introduced. If it is not uprated next April, whatever level of uprating is decided on, thousands more families will crash into the cap for the first time and many will have to start going to a food bank to keep themselves alive.

It is time to recognise that mass food bank dependence is not inevitable. We can turn back from this. We can do much better than this. In the decisions announced next week, we must—at the very least—not make things worse.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

7. What assessment he has made of the impact of the level of universal credit on food insecurity.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)]

I begin by recognising the important work that the right hon. Gentleman carries out as Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee and thank him for the co-operation that he showed me when I was a fellow Chair of a Select Committee. I look forward to appearing before his Committee before too long.

As the right hon. Gentleman will know, universal credit is but one factor in addressing food insecurity. The Government have provided significant support with the £37 billion cost of living package.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on his appointment and warmly welcome him. We already have a date in the diary for him to come before the Committee and we look forward to that.

Current large-scale food bank dependence is shameful. It was up by 46% in August and September on a year previously, according to the Trussell Trust, and it is reported in the press today that hospitals are seeing a big rise in malnutrition cases. The family resources survey also says that food insecurity among universal credit claimants fell from 43% to 27% after the £20 a week uplift was introduced. Does not all that show how crucial it is that the Prime Minister keeps the promise he made as Chancellor to uprate benefits next April by 10.1%?

[Mel Stride]

I am not going to pre-empt my decision on the uprating of benefits or indeed the triple lock. We will need to wait until at least 17 November when my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will come to the House with his autumn statement and those details will be known at that point.

The right hon. Gentleman raises the family resources survey. One statistic that caught my eye was that the percentage of households with UC claimants who are in food security rose from 57% in 2019-20 to 73% in 2020-21. Any element of food insecurity is too much—I recognise that—which is why this Government and this Prime Minister are absolutely determined to use whatever we have at our disposal to work on those figures and to improve them. That includes the various interventions that we have already discussed during these questions.

Social Security (Special Rules for End of Life) Bill [Lords]

Stephen Timms Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 8th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Chloe Smith)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

It is a pleasure to move the Second Reading of the Bill in this role, and I welcome the new member of my ministerial team, the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), who will be at the Dispatch Box for the later stages of this Bill.

For a person to find out that their illness cannot be cured can be a frightening experience. As a Government, we are committed to do all that we can to alleviate the pressures facing those who are nearing the end of their lives and their families. To provide some financial security to those who find themselves in this difficult position, the Department for Work and Pensions has, since the 1990s, provided access to key benefits via what are often referred to as the “special rules”. These are benefit rules that enable people who are nearing the end of their lives to get fast-track access to certain benefits. Historically, people eligible under those rules have not had to wait as long as others to start getting benefit payments. They have not been required to go through medical assessments, and, in most cases, have qualified for higher rates of benefit. In order to access this fast-track route, people had to be assessed by their healthcare professional as having six months or less to live, and this became known as the six-month rule.

For more than 30 years, these special rules have ensured that, at this most difficult time, people have got the financial support to which they are entitled quickly and easily. None the less, since those rules were first introduced there have been significant advances in how the NHS treats and cares for people nearing the end of their lives, meaning that many terminally ill people are now living longer. Given these advances, in July 2019 the Department launched an in-depth evaluation of how the benefit system supports people nearing the end of their lives. As part of that consultation, the Department worked with those people, those who support them and clinicians.

The evaluation’s findings showed that there was consensus across all groups that the Government should extend the current six-month rule. It showed support for the DWP to adopt a 12-month end-of-life approach that would allow people in the final year of their life to claim under the special rules. An added benefit of the 12-month approach was that it would also bring greater consistency with the definition of “end of life” used within the NHS and across Government.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

May I be the first to congratulate the right hon. Lady on her appointment and say on behalf of the Work and Pensions Committee how much we are looking forward to working with her and her colleagues in the months ahead?

The Select Committee had previously suggested getting rid of the time period altogether and referring simply to people having a terminal illness, and that approach has now been taken in Scotland. Did the Department consider that in looking at this change, and, if so, what was the reason for rejecting it?

[Chloe Smith]

The Chair of the Select Committee makes, as ever, a thoughtful point. I very much look forward to working with him and the Committee. Yes, our evaluation did look at exactly that point. As I was just coming on to argue, our approach brings a greater consistency with the NHS, which considers people to be

“approaching the end of their lives when they are likely to die within the next 12 months.”

That consistency is an important objective. At that 12-month point, clinicians are encouraged to think about the support that their patients need, including any financial support.

A point that I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister of State will draw out at Committee stage is that we also think it is important that clinicians can be supported to make the most consistent and straightforward decisions. Of course, in many cases that is not straightforward, but we want to enable clinicians to have the best chance of making a clear decision in support of their patient. That was the evidence that our evaluation found in favour of the 12-month definition. Indeed, that has been borne out by a great deal of support for what we have since been able to announce, which the right hon. Gentleman will be aware of from the various groups that support those in their last stage of life.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee, Sir Stephen Timms.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

The Government’s response last November to the Select Committee’s report on the disability employment gap promised key improvements to Access to Work to make it easier for people to use. Can the Minister give us an update on progress with that? Specifically, the trial of Access to Work passports started last November, so that people can take their support from one job to another. Can the Minister tell us whether that will be extended to everybody on the scheme and when we can expect that to happen?

[Chloe Smith]

These are incredibly important details and aspects of the Access to Work scheme, and the right hon. Gentleman is correct that those improvements are in the pipeline. We have been able to pilot a number of different passports. I will write to him with details and I am also with his Committee next week, where I can provide the precise details of that. By way of example, a passport now in operation assists freelancers and people who work in contract form to be able to carry their requirements with them from job to job, so that it is easier for them to stay and succeed in work, which is the goal we are talking about. I also look forward to talking further with him about the digital improvements we want to make to the process, again to help people get that support earlier and faster, so that they can get the benefits of being in work.