Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and John Bercow

Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It was very useful nevertheless to learn about the Minister’s educational journey, which she regales the House with in a candid spirit.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and John Bercow

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We come now to topical questions. Needless to say, those who lost out on substantives can well hope to be called in topical questions, so they should not beetle out of the Chamber unless they are exceptionally busy people with many commitments and fuller than average diaries.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and John Bercow

Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I will interpret the Minister’s answer as being wide and therefore admitting of other constituencies, although it is not clear beyond peradventure. I will give Members the benefit of the doubt.

[Stephen Timms]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. There will be problems in Torbay and elsewhere if the universal credit calculation is wrong. The Minister told me in a written answer that there is no specific initiative called Late, Missing and Incorrect, but it turns out that there is, run jointly by his Department and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Will he confirm that if real-time PAYE—pay-as-you-earn—information is late, missing or incorrect, then the universal credit calculation will be wrong?

European Council

Debate between Stephen Timms and John Bercow

Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Do not shake your head at me, Mr Evans. I have told you what the position is. [Interruption.] Order. You ask an orderly question, or you do not ask a question. Given your long experience, you ought to know better than to start a question inquiring about the policy of the Opposition. Over Christmas, you can rehearse.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

To avoid, rightly, a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, the Prime Minister has committed the UK, if necessary, to

“maintain full alignment with those rules of the internal market and the customs union”

that are necessary. Will such full alignment apply just to Northern Ireland, or to the UK as a whole?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Timms and John Bercow

Monday 9th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We have run out of time, but I shall call one further questioner, a Member with an insatiable appetite for these matters and a detailed, some would say anorakish, knowledge of all the most complex formulae. I am referring, of course, to the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms).

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am very grateful, Mr Speaker. Apart from shocking delays, Citizens Advice highlights two big problems with universal credit. One is that it is too complicated; people cannot understand it. The second is that when there is a problem, there is nobody there to help people. I am glad that the Secretary of State is meeting Citizens Advice, but will he have anything to say to them on those two specific problems?

Violence in Rakhine State

Debate between Stephen Timms and John Bercow

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am keen to accommodate colleagues, but there is a premium on single questions. I look for a rapier inquiry to that intellectual colossus from Newham, Mr Stephen Timms.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Will the Minister urge the Government of Myanmar to review—or, preferably, repeal—the 1982 citizenship law so that Rohingya Muslims can be granted citizenship of the country where they have always lived?