Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 18th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

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

A large number of people in Banff and Buchan are economically inactive. They are not claiming benefits so they are not eligible for employment support from jobcentres, but the Select Committee recommended last summer that such people should be eligible. Would that not be in their interests and in the interests of employers struggling to fill vacant posts at the moment, and therefore supportive of much-needed economic growth?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 5th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call James Sunderland. Not here. I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

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

I agree with the Secretary of State about the cross-party success of auto-enrolment, which has doubled the proportion of eligible employees saving for retirement, but we know that the current regular auto-enrolment contribution of 8% of earnings is not enough to deliver the standard of living in retirement that most people hope for. Does the Secretary of State recognise that that minimum level of contribution will need to be increased?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee.

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

Will the Secretary of State point out to the Chancellor that many councils have used the household support fund to pay £3 per day per child during the school holidays to families entitled to free school meals, and that if the fund closes at the end of March, those families will be straight into hardship in the Easter school holidays?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 18th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

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

Last week, Uber came to Parliament to brief MPs on partnerships it has set up to support its drivers, including its recognition agreement with the GMB trade union. All Uber private hire drivers are now auto-enrolled into a pension, but legal uncertainty means that that is not the case for Uber’s competitors. Is it not high time for the Government to bring forward their employment Bill, which was promised after the Taylor review, to provide a level playing field for employers and to tackle these problems of insecurity in the gig economy?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

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

Those Trussell Trust figures published last week made grim reading. Does the Secretary of State recognise that if working-age benefits are uprated by less than September’s rate of inflation in April next year, there will inevitably be another big surge in food bank demand and destitution?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

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

Rents have risen very sharply over the past couple of years, but the support for people claiming means-tested benefits to pay their rent, determined by local housing allowance, has not changed at all since 2020—it has been completely frozen. I wrote to the Secretary of State about this over the summer. Is the Minister able to give the House any assurance that the forthcoming benefit uprating statement will include a realistic increase in local housing allowance?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

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

Very little data is being published on the outcomes of the restart programme in Don Valley or anywhere. There was a one-off statistical release last December, but nothing regular at all. In the past, we have had monthly data from the Work programme, and we still have regular updates from the Work and Health programme. Does the Minister recognise the value of regular publication of outcome data for the flagship restart programme?

Health and Disability White Paper

Debate between Stephen Timms and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 16th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee.

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

There are very welcome measures in the White Paper, although a lot of the detail is still missing. The work capability assessment is to be scrapped, starting in three or four years’ time, and replaced with

“a new personalised health conditionality approach”

to assess entitlement to what the Minister just referred to as the “health top-up” in universal credit. That sounds like a new assessment of some kind. Can he tell us what it means?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 6th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

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

The pensions dashboard will provide important support. It was due to be rolled out from August, but last week the Minister, very disappointingly, announced a delay and we do not now know when it will be implemented. Is it a delay of weeks or months, or even longer? Will the Minister give us a full, urgent update before the Easter recess?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and Lindsay Hoyle

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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I will just say once again, Minister, please stop taking advantage of these poor Back Benchers, who are desperate to get their questions in.

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

It is estimated that 4,000 Muslim young people every year choose, with a heavy heart, not to enter higher education because their faith bars them from paying interest on a student loan. David Cameron said nine years ago that he would fix that. Will the new ministerial team, whom I welcome, commit to introducing alternative student finance and give us some indication of when that will be?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and Lindsay Hoyle

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?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 6th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Sir Stephen Timms, Chairman of the Select Committee, whom I congratulate on his knighthood.

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

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I welcome the efforts on pension credit take-up. The Chancellor’s additional payments are very welcome, but the need for them highlights the failings of the current pensions and benefits uprating system. The Select Committee will be looking at this, but does the Minister agree that now is the time to review how we uprate pensions and benefits each year and the level at which they are set?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, Sir Stephen Timms.

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

The household support fund now accounts for billions in public spending. What information is the Department collecting about how that fund is being used, who is benefiting from it, what their circumstances are and how much support they receive? What plans does the Department have to publish that information?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 21st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the Chair of the Select Committee Stephen Timms.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

The Minister could have a busy summer ahead. Take-up of pension credit remains low: an estimated 850,000 pensioner households across the country are not receiving the help that they are entitled to. The Department could feasibly work out who those households are and simply make them an award of pension credit. Given the scale of the current cost of living crisis, will the Department commit to an ambitious target for increasing the take-up of pension credit across the country and to a much more ambitious campaign to promote it?

DWP Estate: Office Closures

Debate between Stephen Timms and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 17th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

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

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

This week’s employment figures show that there are 580,000 fewer people in work now than there were before the pandemic. In particular, there seem to be several hundred thousand older workers now choosing not to work nor to claim benefit. We all want a full labour market recovery. Does the Minister recognise that this is going to require major Government investment rather than the disinvestment that I think he is announcing this morning?

Underpayment of Benefits: Compensation

Debate between Stephen Timms and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 13th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I just say to Members who were not present at the outset that they should not expect to be called, and ask them please not to try to take advantage? I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, Stephen Timms.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I welcome this important report, and I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question.

What is the position relating to the payment of interest in cases such as this? The ombudsman found that these failings had had a severe effect on Ms U’s existing mental and physical health problems, and no doubt the same is true for quite a number of the other 118,000 people affected. Will the Department work out, proactively, who should be receiving compensation? One of the ombudsman’s recommendations is that the Department should report to the Select Committee on its progress in considering his report and the decisions that it makes on how to remedy its own failings. Will the Department accept the recommendation and report to the Committee, and if so, when can we expect that to happen?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 8th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Unemployment support is now at the lowest level in real terms for more than 30 years, even though the economy has grown by more than 50% in real terms over that period. As a proportion of average earnings, it is the lowest ever—lower than when Lloyd George introduced unemployment benefit 110 years ago. Why has unemployment support been set at this historically extremely low level?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 30th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

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

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

The number of households affected by the cap has more than doubled since the start of the pandemic, to 170,000. In addition, 160,000 households will come to the end of their nine-month benefit cap grace period in the coming month. So will the Secretary of State consider extending the grace period, to avoid cutting the benefits of hard-pressed families in the run-up to Christmas?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 19th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, Stephen Timms.

[Stephen Timms]

The Select Committee’s report published today calls for new starter payments to claimants of universal credit to help tide them over the very difficult five-week wait for their first regular benefit payment, and for the £20 a week increase, which the Secretary of State has referred to, to be made permanent. How can it possibly be justified for people claiming jobseeker’s allowance and employment and support allowance to receive £20 a week less than people in identical circumstances who happen to be claiming universal credit?