Personal Independence Payment: Disabled People

Debate between Stephen Timms and Imran Hussain

Wednesday 7th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I am afraid I cannot give way again.

The OBR is right on this. Its assessment is based on previous experience of changes of this kind. The behaviour both of the people claiming the benefits and of those who conduct the assessments changes. For example, I have met people who were awarded two points for one of the activities last time around, when I thought they were entitled to four, but it did not change their award, so it was not challenged and nobody minded. In future, someone in that position could well score four points on that activity and so retain the benefit, even though they did not score four points on any of the activities last time around.

Changes to the PIP assessment will not be immediate; they will take effect from November 2026.

[Imran Hussain]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I cannot give way again; a lot of points were made in the debate.

For a given individual, the changes will take effect only at their first award review after November 2026. Award reviews take place on average at three-year intervals, so for many PIP claimants the change will take effect only a year or two after November 2026. In line with existing practice, people who are above state pension age will not normally be reassessed and so will not be affected at all.

If and when people are reassessed, it will be by a trained assessor, and the assessment will be of their individual needs and circumstances. We are consulting on how best to support those who lose entitlement, including those who will lose carers’ allowance, who are explicitly flagged up in the Green Paper. We set out in the Green Paper our plans to improve trust in the way that both PIP and WCA assessments work, which many of us have heard worries about, through reviewing our approach to safeguarding; recording assessments as standard so that when something goes wrong with the assessment, we can look back at the recording, see what happened and improve the assessment for next time; and moving back to having more face-to-face assessments, while continuing to meet the needs of people who may require different methods of assessment.

I think I have time to give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon).

Household Support Fund

Debate between Stephen Timms and Imran Hussain

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Household Support Fund.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie, and I am delighted that we have the opportunity to debate this matter. Since October 2021, the household support fund has provided £2.5 billion in local crisis support. I am delighted that both of the Ministers responsible for setting it up, the right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) and the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince), are in their places, as is the current Minister, the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill). The fund has played a crucial role. At the autumn statement, I asked the Chancellor whether it would be extended into next year. His answer was yes, but it turns out that that was incorrect; the documentation did not bear that answer out, and we still do not know the answer to my question, hence the debate.

In the 1930s, the then Unemployment Assistance Board offered one-off additional payments on top of weekly assistance. From 1988, discretionary payments were centralised in the Department for Work and Pensions social fund. The coalition Government replaced that with local welfare assistance, making the fair argument that local authorities were best placed to distribute the funding. The social fund budget went to local authorities, but it was never ringfenced to the new local welfare assistance. As local council budgets have been squeezed, leading to recent bankruptcy announcements, councils have cut back. Local welfare assistance spending fell 87% from 2010-11 to 2019-20, and 35 councils operated no local welfare assistance at all in 2021-22. That decline was only ended by the household support fund.

The remarkable Liverpool-based charity End Furniture Poverty sent freedom of information requests to every local council about the year 2022-23. Eight said they depend entirely on the household support fund to fund local welfare. In a further 23 councils, the fund provides more than half of their spending. Of the £91 million spent by local authorities on local welfare assistance in 2022-23, only £34.7 million came from councils’ core budgets; 62% came from the household support fund. Failing to extend the fund now, with no replacement, would end vital support in the midst of a continuing crisis, but it would also end a feature of social security that has been supported by every Government since 1934.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing such an important debate. He is right to put the situation in context, because it has to be viewed against the backdrop of 14 years of ideological austerity cuts, combined with the worst cost of living crisis. Not only has destitution increased by 61% in the past three years, but local authorities are poorer and cannot provide this support. Does he agree that, should the fund be cut, it would take away the essential lifeline that many families who struggle to put food on the table rely on?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I agree with my hon. Friend, as I do with the press release issued last Friday by the Minister. It said:

“The Household Support Fund is there for anyone who needs a helping hand.”

The question is whether it will still be there in six weeks’ time, which is the subject of this debate.