Sir Stephen Timms
MP for East Ham · Labour · United Kingdom
“I agree with the hon. Gentleman. If he would like to send me details of that particular case, I will happily look into it. On the subject of people with hearing impairments, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities and I will be meeting the British Sign Language Advisory Board this afternoon.”
“Better outcomes require early identification and support for girls and young women with special educational needs, including dyslexia. That is the aim of the SEND reforms and the development of national inclusion standards.”
“Autistic people and people with ADHD have been struggling to get the right support at the right time. Recommendations from Professor Karen Guldberg’s neurodivergence task and finish group directly informed the SEND reforms that were published earlier this year.”
“The Equality Act 2010 places a duty on public bodies to make reasonable adjustments, so that disabled people are not put at a disadvantage by accessibility challenges.”
“The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. This benefit is there to contribute to the additional costs of disability. Too often, what has happened—my hon.”
“I think we can take the hon. Member’s question as a tacit recognition that in 14 years the previous Government should have done something to fix these problems. The steering group is clear that the provision of cash to meet the additional costs of disability is vital.”
The complete record
Every one of 5,185 lines we hold for Sir Stephen Timms, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 17 of 104.
“In its view, the statement that it will be required to complete under the terms of the new code will demand “significant…resource for little or no benefit to our members.” To the USS, and to me, that appears inconsistent with the assurances that open schemes will not be adversely impacted by the new funding regime. The USS adds: “Not…having had sight of the revised…Funding Code and accompanying covenant guidance has exacerbated” their worries. I know that the Minister understands these concerns well. Closure of those schemes would reduce pension fund investment in the productive economy at a time when the Chancellor wants—absolutely rightly—to increase investment from pension schemes into the productive economy.”
“We recommended that the Department and the Pensions Regulator should work with open schemes to address their concerns, particularly on the employer covenant horizon—the length of time for which they are confident in the sponsoring employer’s willingness and ability to support the scheme—and report back to us on how they will do so before the new funding code is laid before Parliament. Since our report was published, feedback from schemes suggests that things may not be moving in the right direction. In a consultation response last week, the University Superannuation Scheme—a large and still open scheme—described the regulator’s proposed approach as “not fit for purpose for open DB schemes”.”
“In a letter to the Committee on 18 December, the Minister told us that both the Department and the Pensions Regulator were “acutely aware of the need to take account of the specific needs of open schemes,” and he agreed that “open schemes should not be forced into an inappropriate de-risking journey.” We welcomed that assurance, but it needs now to be reflected in the final wording of the funding code and in the regulator’s approach. The vote in Parliament on the statutory instrument came before the final version of the funding code was published, so Members did not quite know what they were voting for at that point.”
“That has promoted concerns that the funding code will, when introduced, force more unnecessary de-risking, particularly among open schemes, as well as among those that are closed but have long time horizons, which would increase costs to employers and result in premature closure. We said that the DWP and the Pensions Regulator needed “to act urgently to ensure they do not inadvertently finish off what few open schemes remain by further increasing the risk aversion”.”
“The Committee also looked at concerns about the new defined benefit funding regime to be introduced for scheme valuations from September. We noted that the regime had been developed “in a different era when the vast majority of DB schemes were in deficit and amidst concern that employers were seeking to evade their responsibility to underfunded schemes.” There have been big changes since then, especially in the wake of the liability-driven investment crisis following the Budget of 18 months or so ago. In particular, there have been significant improvements in scheme funding, but the principles of the new regime have not been changed. Schemes are expected to target a position of low dependency on the sponsoring employer, meaning low-investment risk at the point of significant maturity.”
“The right hon. Gentleman is quite right. We have noted a bit of a move towards sole trustees in a number of cases, which clearly gives rise to concerns about how one person can represent the interests of the members of a pension scheme. We are reflecting on that in our work, but one of the members of the Hewlett-Packard scheme wrote to me this week—he may well also have written to other Members—about “the further fear and despair they are now feeling as it dawns upon them that their company and pension scheme trustees are meanwhile preparing plans to derisk by transferring their Pensioner responsibilities to an Insurance Company”— something the right hon. Gentleman touched on. That transfer will quite possibly mean “no subsequent possibility ever for pre-1997 increases.” He calls that “a frightening prospect”, and it is hard to disagree.”
“Member for Orkney and Shetland for giving the House the opportunity to reflect on all this at this particular time. There has been some good progress, for example with auto-enrolment, but a lot more work is needed. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.”
“Other such concerns are that these changes would require a new infrastructure, which would be hard to build, as pensions dashboards have certainly proved to be; and that they distract attention from the important effort to increase auto-enrolment contributions over time, which the responses argue—correctly, I think—should be the main focus of changes over the next few years. The Minister will be very familiar with all those concerns. Will he tell us when the Department will publish its response to the lifetime provider model consultation, and does he acknowledge that responses to the consultation so far have indicated very significant risks in the Government’s proposal for rather limited gains? There is a lot going on in this area. I am very grateful to the right hon.”
“Age UK, for example, said that the proposals would be “highly disruptive and lead to poor outcomes for mass market savers.” Major concerns raised in the responses include potentially unwinding the consensus on auto-enrolment; that other measures in train, such as pensions dashboards, value for money and consolidation, will reduce the number of small pots anyway and improve value; that the proposals would benefit savers with larger pots, but harm lower-income savers; and that they would increase employers’ costs while entirely removing their role in selecting a pension scheme for their staff. I have heard time and again, as I am sure the Minister has, how important employers are to trust in pension savings and that employers have delivered in auto-enrolment what we have asked them to deliver.”
“As such, the Department has proposed a lifetime provider model with member choice, so that employees tell their employer which pot to put their contributions into, and a pot for life, so that employees stay in the pension scheme they started out in throughout their working life unless they choose to move. Consultation responses on those proposals raised some very serious concerns from the TUC, Age UK, and the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association and the Association of British Insurers—the main industry bodies.”
“Will that consultation be launched before the end of this Parliament, and does he still expect—as the Government have long maintained—that those changes will be implemented by the mid-2020s? We always knew that auto-enrolment would lead to many small pension pots. People change jobs, so they accumulate, on average, 10 pension pots across their working life. By November 2022, there were over 12 million deferred pots under £1,000. The Department for Work and Pensions has proposed automatic default consolidation to deal with small pots, but that will not in itself stop small pots from building up in future.”
“As such, the Committee recommended that the Government should first implement the recommendations of the 2017 auto-enrolment review: reducing the minimum age for auto-enrolment from 22 to 18, and minimum contributions being paid from the first pound of earnings. Almost all of our witnesses supported those measures, and we welcome Royal Assent being given to the legislation that will implement them. That legislation requires a public consultation on implementation, and for its findings to be reported to Parliament before the regulations are made. However, as yet there has been no consultation, and nor has any date been announced for it, so can the Minister tell us when the Department will be consulting on implementation of those regulations?”
“I applaud the approach now being taken by Uber following the Supreme Court case that it lost, and the recognition agreement that it now has with the GMB trade union. It is now auto-enrolling large numbers of its drivers into a pension scheme, albeit with higher opt-out rates than elsewhere, which is making some real inroads into pension scheme saving in the gig economy. We need much more of that among other gig economy workers. However, many auto-enrolled people are not contributing enough at the moment for an adequate retirement income, and quite a lot of them are probably not aware of that. Contribution rates need to go up.”
“The right hon. Gentleman makes a very fair point. That is certainly a very long-running case, and the Select Committee has recently been looking at a notable pension scam case—the Norton Motorcycle Company pension schemes, which was a straightforward scam—that has been running for years and years. He is right that we need to find ways to speed up some of these processes, because the victims in these cases have their lives really blighted. We are allowing that blight to last for years and years, and that needs to change. On the issue of defined-contribution schemes, the Committee published a report in September 2022 on saving for later life, which pointed out that auto-enrolment has been a very big success, doubling the proportion of eligible workers saving in a pension.”
“I thank the Minister for the attention that he is paying to the recommendations in our report. On the auto-enrolment review recommendations, does he envisage the consultation on implementation happening this side of the election?”
“Indeed, in Canada, the Government publish how much they save by ending people’s lives rather than continuing to care for them.”
“It seems to me that legalising assisted dying would impose a terrible dilemma on frail people, elderly people and others when they are at the most vulnerable point in their lives, especially on conscientious frail people who do not want to die but do not want to be a burden. I do not think that there is any way to avoid imposing that dilemma. The national health service should be there to protect those people. It is reported that in Oregon since 2017, over half the applicants for assisted dying have applied not because they want to die but because they feel that that they are a burden. The next time we have a Government committed to austerity, the temptation to cut health service costs by allowing people to choose to end their lives in a wider set of circumstances, instead of funding their care, would, I fear, be irresistible.”
“I understand the proposition that people with a diagnosis of terminal illness should be allowed help to die, but it is clear from what happens elsewhere that if that did happen, it would not remain subject to that narrow criterion. It would not end there. Indeed, the campaign to broaden the scope has already begun. Matthew Parris wrote in his column in T he T imes that we need assisted suicide because old people cost too much. He said: “‘Your time is up’ will never be an order, but—yes, the objectors are right—may one day be the kind of unspoken hint that everybody understands. And that’s a good thing.” I cannot see that that would be a good thing.”
“I very much welcome the thoughtful and sensitive way in which my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) opened the debate. I agree with her and others that we need careful reflection on this subject. The national health service is, rightfully, my party’s proudest achievement. It has delivered freedom from the fear of medical bills, which has blighted the lives of non-wealthy people since time immemorial. I think that changing the nature of the national health service, so that it ends people’s lives as well as sustains them, would be an absolutely fundamental change that we need to weigh very carefully indeed before introducing.”
“I very much agree with my right hon. Friend that it is a bleak view, but it is supported by what we have seen happening elsewhere around the world. Unfortunately, I think it would happen here as well. The argument I want to set out is that this road is not one that those of us who subscribe to the founding principles of Nye Bevan’s health service should be willing to go down.”
“PIP assessment providers confirm that worsening delays in NHS treatment are a big factor in the increase in the number of people applying for PIP. The Secretary of State has confirmed this afternoon that the work capability assessment is to be scrapped and replaced by PIP assessments. There are people who are too ill to work, but not disabled, and so not eligible for PIP. How will their support be assessed in the absence of work capability assessments?”
“and learned Gentleman spells out with passion in his foreword, at the moment, we are “missing out on the skills and energy that autistic people could be contributing, to the detriment of us all.” He is absolutely right about that. The danger, I fear, is that without targets against which to measure progress, the report may not really change things.”
“Unfortunately, the target of halving the gap was abandoned shortly after the 2015 election was safely won, which strikes me as the kind of move that gives politicians a bad name. In our 2021 report, the Work and Pensions Committee called unanimously, on a cross-party basis, for that target to be reinstated. The report we are debating this afternoon refers in paragraph 2.7 to making progress on closing the employment gap, and I call on the Government, in responding to that report, to set an ambitious target for increasing the employment rate among people with autism—perhaps, as the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon has just suggested, up to at least the overall disability employment rate. As the right hon.”
“That would have been a really substantial target against which to measure progress to include in the report, but it is not in there. My fear is that a lack of ambition has regrettably marked the Government’s efforts on disability employment for some time. There was a moment not long ago when a higher level of ambition was announced. Government Members may well remember that they campaigned in the 2015 general election on a target announced by David Cameron to halve the wider disability employment gap. That gap fell sharply from 1998 to 2010 through the new deal for disabled people, but it has been stuck at around 30 percentage points ever since; it went down for a bit after 2015, but perhaps unsurprisingly during the pandemic it went back up.”
“I fear that when, in two or five years’ time, we ask whether the recommendations have been delivered, the answer will be a bit unclear. I do not blame the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon for that—no doubt Ministers would not have gone along with a higher level of ambition—but I fear that the Government will be able to accept all the recommendations without really changing anything. It does seem to be a bit of a missed opportunity. The report rightly highlights the huge size of the autism employment gap. By how much should we aim to reduce it? In his speech a moment ago, the right hon. and learned Gentleman suggested that the aim should be to increase the rate of employment among people with autism at least up to the overall disability employment rate.”
“We have just closed our call for evidence for that inquiry—I am glad that we have received evidence from Autistica, among others—and we will soon start to take oral evidence from disability charities and others. The review will help us to frame particular questions on autism employment in the context of that inquiry. As the review points out, the employment gap is much worse for autistic people than for disabled people more broadly. A disappointing feature of the report for me, though, is the rather unambitious nature of the recommendations, which are along the lines of, “The Government ought to try a bit harder on this, and do a bit more of that.” There are no targets set out in the report, and nothing to help us to monitor progress.”
“I am very pleased to follow the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland); I congratulate him on securing this debate and on the report, which makes a very valuable contribution on this extremely important topic. The report does a good job of laying bare the obstacles facing autistic people in the workplace—obstacles that, as he rightly says, we need to overcome. I applaud the obvious passion that he has shown in presenting the report to us. I did not know about his own family link, and I am grateful to him for explaining that to us. The Work and Pensions Committee has recently launched our own inquiry into disability employment, to follow up the report that we published in 2021 on the disability employment gap.”
“The founders—I think they were in Scandinavia —recognised that many autistic adults have extraordinary abilities, such as pattern recognition, sustained concentration and attention to detail, which are valuable qualities in many employment contexts. However, autistic people need support to secure and maintain those jobs, and Auticon specifically provides that support, understanding the needs of its employees, and has built a successful business on that basis.”
“and learned Member for South Swindon is absolutely right that there is a big opportunity here to boost disability employment if we can just find a way to enable employers to tap into it. The hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) is absolutely right that employers are willing to do so, if only they knew how—it is a bit of a closed book to them. I do not think there is a lack of willingness on the part of employers, but there is a lack of information. It was very interesting to read in the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s review about Auticon, which I had not heard of before. It is an IT consultancy in which 80% of the workforce are autistic, highly talented IT consultants.”
“The Minister may want to comment on this in due course, but, as far as I can tell, it does not appear that any of the newer employment support programmes, such as WorkWell and universal support, will provide support comparable to that which is being closed down, and which the report has rightly identified as very helpful. The fear is that, despite the laudable aims set out in the report, which I know the Minister will endorse, we are in reality going backwards. The provision at the moment, which has been there for some time, is being removed. It would be helpful if the Minister could tell us why IPES and the work and health programme are being closed down, and where the new initiatives are to close what looks like an emerging gap in provision for people with autism. Employers are struggling at the moment to fill vacancies. The right hon.”
“and learned Gentleman’s report, which rightly points out that referrals to IPES have now ended, as our Select Committee heard in a one-off evidence session last week on the Government’s back to work plan. There will be no more IPES referrals. We were told by providers at our evidence session last week that the work and health programme, also referred to in paragraph 2.11 of the report, is also coming to an end. Those are two programmes that the report rightly identifies as providing valuable help for people with autism to move into employment which are being shut down.”
“I wonder whether the Minister, who I know takes a very close interest in this area, recognises that job carving could make a significant difference to the employment prospects of many autistic people. One thing the Government response to our 2021 inquiry did refer to was the plan at that time to increase the number of places on the intensive personalised employment support scheme. IPES provides voluntary employment support to people with disabilities and complex barriers to employment. As we noted in our report, the guidance to IPES providers explicitly mentions job carving as an intervention that can help disabled people to find and stay in work. IPES is referred to in paragraph 2.11 of the right hon.”
“In its “Working Better” report, the Equality and Human Rights Commission described job carving as a “a flexible way of managing a workforce, which allows employers to utilise their staff skills in the most productive way whilst enabling disabled people to make a valuable contribution to the world of work.” Our 2021 report called on the Government as part of their then forthcoming national disability strategy to provide detailed guidance to employers and providers of employment support on how they could job carve roles for disabled people, and called on Jobcentre Plus to encourage local employers in their area to job carve. The Government’s response to our report did not pick up the concept of job carving, but Ministers could still pick it up in responding to the report we are debating this afternoon.”
“Catherine Hale, director of the Chronic Illness Inclusion project, told our 2021 inquiry that job carving was particularly effective in supporting people with learning disabilities; given the big overlap between autism and learning disability, I think that job carving could certainly help. The charity Mind says that job carving roles for people with learning disabilities can benefit employers by removing tasks from other employees and freeing up time.”
“I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for that intervention. Perhaps he could use his influence with the task group—I do not know whether he is a member of it; I am not sure how that will work out, but I am sure he will have influence with it—to urge it to adopt the target that he set out a few minutes ago, which I think could make a substantial difference. I welcome the call in the report for “processes and support mechanisms that enable autistic staff to be recruited and to succeed.” In that context, I want to draw attention to a concept that is not mentioned in the report—I am a bit disappointed that it was not—but which has been referred to elsewhere, not least in our Select Committee report. The concept of job carving means assessing a person’s skills and then tailoring an employee role to those skills.”
“I very much hope that—perhaps as a result of the work of the task group that he mentioned—we will finally see some of that when the Government respond formally to this very welcome report.”
“Does she agree that requiring employers to report on the number of disabled people they employ and, within that, perhaps the number of autistic people, could be effective in encouraging the employment of people with autism and other health impairments? I very much welcome the report, which has highlighted important issues, and the opportunity to debate it today. I also welcome the positive approach that the right hon. and learned Gentleman took, when introducing the report earlier, in seeing the scale of opportunity if we get this right. However, laudable aspirations in this area are just not enough if delivery is delayed for years. We need an ambitious target to increase the rate of employment among people with autism and other disabled people. We need worked-up plans and timescales to deliver them.”
“One other policy lever the Government could pull is mandatory disability workforce reporting, which was recommended unanimously, on a cross-party basis, in our 2021 report. There is a voluntary framework through which employers can choose to report, but in late 2021 the Government launched a consultation on whether to require large employers to report the number of disabled people they were employing. That work was then paused, but I understand that it has now been resumed, and that the Government plan to publish their findings and next steps in the course of this year. I wonder whether the Minister can update us on when we can expect to see that work.”
“and learned Member for South Swindon referred to this in his speech—that almost two thirds of disabled people stated that it took over three months for their application to be processed, and 20% said that it took over six months. He is absolutely right that that is far too slow. I agree that, as the review suggests, if the adjustment passport produces positive results, it should be rolled out nationally as soon as possible. However, in response to our Committee’s report three years ago in November 2021, we were promised that the adjustment passport would be piloted from November 2021 and, if successful, would be expanded to support all Access to Work customers. As far as I can tell, we seem to be no further forward in 2024 than we were in November 2021. When are these long-promised improvements actually going to materialise?”
“Employers can, as things stand, achieve the highest level of Disability Confident accreditation without employing a single disabled person. In response to our predecessor Select Committee six years ago, the Department said that it was developing proposals for an evaluation of Disability Confident. That commitment, first expressed six years ago, was announced again in response to our report almost three years ago in November 2021. However, I have still seen no sign of anything happening. Perhaps the Minister can update us. Is that evaluation of Disability Confident now complete, and when can we expect Disability Confident finally to be reformed? The review is absolutely right to highlight the importance of Access to Work and to call for improvements there. It makes the point—I think the right hon.”
“Evidence to our inquiry so far suggests that, as the hon. Member for Worcester rightly said, employers want to do the right thing but often simply do not know how. When they are pointed in the right direction and try it, it turns out to be a positive experience. What can the Government do to give employers confidence in this area? The review calls on the Department to “Continue to develop Disability Confident, increasing the rigour of developmental work needed to achieve the higher Disability Confident levels”. I think that is a very kind way of expressing the point. The noble Lord Shinkwin, who sits on the Government Benches in the other place and chaired the disability commission for the Centre for Social Justice, spoke for many of our witnesses when he said that Disability Confident “is not making a measurable impact” at the moment.”
“That sounds like a wonderful model. The more of that kind of initiative around the country, the better. The report makes the point that a line manager in a mainstream business may well not know that somebody they are managing is autistic. Whether the employer can agree reasonable adjustments for the employee, as is their right under the Equality Act, will depend on them self-disclosing their diagnosis to their line manager. As the review notes, whatever the level of understanding among company directors or senior staff, if the line manager is unable or unwilling to provide support, the employee will struggle to stay in their job. The review is right to point out that at the moment there is no easily accessible guidance for employers and line managers on how to support autistic staff.”
“As the Minister heard, the right hon. and learned Gentleman suggested a few minutes ago that there should be a target for raising the level of employment among autistic people at least up to the wider disability employment rate. Will she consider adopting that target?”
“The review made the point about the reform of Disability Confident. Can the Minister give an update on that? Has the evaluation been completed? When will the changes be brought forward?”
“That is a possible yardstick. As we have heard, Spain and the Netherlands apply a standard along those lines, and it is certainly well below £38,700. The increase in the minimum income requirement goes far beyond the level to deliver the Government’s stated aims for the threshold. It will reduce migration only minimally, but it will cause great hardship to thousands and damage the fabric of our society. It will be ineffective, unfair and harmful, and it should be scrapped.”
“We will all suffer the downsides for society that Conservative Members will readily enumerate in other contexts, but they are forcing those break-ups through these changes. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central pointed out that the Migration Observatory at Oxford University has shown that 70% to 74% of employees in the UK would not meet the £38,700 requirement. Surely the Government are not suggesting that only about a quarter of UK employees can support their dependants financially, but that appears to be the implication of their claims. Various other standards have been suggested in the debate, but, as my hon. Friend suggested, surely a better standard would be to ensure that anybody bringing dependants into the UK would have an income above the level at which they are ineligible for universal credit.”
“Friend the Member for Sheffield Central pointed out that the Migrant Integration Policy Index places us second from bottom out of 56 for ease of family reunion. The Justice and Home Affairs Committee in the other place pointed out in its 2023 report “All families matter” the wider harm of reducing cohesion across society. Parents forced into single parenthood must reduce involvement in the wider community, and children separated from their parents by arbitrary rules that they cannot understand trust society less as a result. This is a spiteful change that will undermine cohesion in our society in the long term. Conservative politicians very often recognise the damage caused by breaking up families, but here they choose to break them up quite deliberately.”
“The Government’s own analysis suggests that the increased minimum income requirement will cut migration by between 3% and 10% of the promised 300,000 reduction, and that is almost certainly an overestimate. The truth is that increasing income thresholds on spousal visas will barely dent migration figures. It is extraordinary that the Government did not even consult the Migration Advisory Committee before announcing the change. It will not have much of an impact on migration—the Government’s own analysis confirms that—but it will cause great hardship for those affected. Thousands of people will have to live without their partners and thousands of children will have to live without a parent. My hon.”
“It appears to be an arbitrary set of numbers, and it is a disproportionate increase with very unfair and harmful effects. When the Home Secretary set out his plan, of which the increased minimum income threshold requirement was part, he said this was going to deliver “the biggest ever reduction in net migration.” —[ Official Report , 4 December 2023; Vol. 742, c. 41.] He said that 300,000 people who came to the UK last year would not be able to do so. However, as we have been reminded, family visas accounted for only 5% of total entry visas between January and September last year. Family visas have not made up more than 10% of total entry visas for over a decade.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on securing this debate and on the very compelling case he made in opening it. I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie), and I agree with a great deal of what she said. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central set out the changes that are proposed. When we started talking about all of this, the Prime Minister argued that anyone bringing dependants to the UK must be able to support them financially. We understand that point, but the changes that have been announced will take the minimum income requirement far beyond the income of most UK employees.”