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.”
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“I very much look forward to the Minister’s response, and to her appearance before the Committee on Wednesday, when we will have an opportunity to explore these issues in further detail.”
“From real-time information from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the Department knows what people are earning, and it can stop payment of carer’s allowance to those who are no longer eligible. Indeed, the Government’s response to the 2019 report confirmed that there is an automatic notification when weekly net pay exceeds the carer’s allowance earnings limit, yet the Department does nothing, instead allowing people to build up these huge overpayments, and then prosecuting them. Carrying on in that way is not right. I recognise that the Minister may not have the detailed data for 2023-24, as we have been given for ’22-23, but it would be helpful if she asked her officials to provide that to the Committee in the coming weeks.”
“Has the Department looked at the effect of that rule specifically on young and young adult carers, including on their opportunities later in life? The restriction on learning and caring is, we understand, being lifted in Scotland, with obvious advantages for young carers. My final concern is overpayments, which we have touched on, and which have featured in recent news reports. It is not a new issue; our predecessor Committee published a report specifically on this issue in 2019. Data from the Department shows that in the year 2022-23, the Department was pursuing more than 30,000 overpayments of up to £2,000, and more than 7,000 payments of over £2,000, including 36 overpayments of over £20,000. How has the Department allowed overpayments which, in some cases, clearly cover quite a few years, to accumulate?”
“Will the Minister tell us today whether there are plans to review an increase on the earnings limit on the carer’s allowance, such as by linking increases each year with rises in the national living wage? We have also heard that the earnings limit is just one of several eligibility restrictions. Another is the 21-hour rule, which prevents carers in full-time education— those attending 21 or more hours a week—from claiming carer’s allowance. Last month, Carers UK made the point to our Committee that a young adult carer has to “choose between getting an education and qualifications and getting some financial support”. They added: “That is not right. It will affect people for the rest of their lives”.”
“Friend the Member for Neath rightly told us, Carers UK has pointed out that the number of hours that a carer has been able to work at the national living wage while also receiving carer’s allowance has decreased over the last few years. Our report called on the Government to commit to uprating the earnings threshold for carer’s allowance annually. There should be a commitment to increase it every year. A similar point was made in the 2019 report. In their response, the Government said: “We will look at the findings from the research”— to which I have referred— “with an open mind, and would consider any changes to the earnings limit to be a priority.” However, since then, nothing has happened.”
“That brings me to the second challenge: the earnings limit for carer’s allowance. In the same session of our Committee, we heard how the carer’s allowance earnings limit acts as a disincentive for carers who would like to work, either because they would be worse off financially should they lose carer’s allowance because of their work, or—this is the really big problem—due to fears that they would accidentally slip over the limit for carer’s allowance, giving rise to the overpayments we have just heard about. The earnings limit effectively traps carers only in low-paid work, whatever their skills or training. The carer’s allowance earnings limit is not increased in line with the national minimum wage. As my hon.”
“I want to be able to look after my father. I want to make sure he does not have to go without things, and I would like to be able to have bit of a life myself without having to fight with my finances every day.” I know the Minister has substantial experience of caring; does she recognise that the rate of carer’s allowance today is just not enough? Terry is a registered nurse by profession. To retain his registration he would have to work a certain number of hours a week, but that would take him over the carer’s allowance earnings limit. It is impossible for him to maintain his registration and continue to receive carer’s allowance. To balance his caring role and his finances, he has had to leave the profession—to give up work altogether—and care for his father. He now just about survives on carer’s allowance.”
“The Select Committee is very much looking forward to hearing from the Minister about carer’s allowance on Wednesday. Will she tell us when the policy development will conclude and whether the research will finally be published, as promised in 2019? As we have heard, carer’s allowance is paid at a weekly rate of £81.90, which is less than other income-replacement benefits—jobseekers’ allowance is nearly £10 a week more. In my Committee’s recent inquiry on benefit levels in the UK, we heard that carer’s allowance was paid at too low a rate and that as a result carers often had to cut back on food and were struggling to make ends meet. Last month, in a one-off evidence session on carer’s allowance, we heard from Terry Kirton, a full-time carer for his father. He said, of caring and of receiving carer’s allowance: “I am tired of struggling.”
“As others have said, for the best part of two decades now the Work and Pensions Committee and its predecessors have been calling on the Government to reform carer’s allowance, including the rate at which it is paid. A 2008 Select Committee report, “Valuing and Supporting Carers”, concluded that carer’s allowance was “outdated” and “should be radically overhauled at the earliest opportunity to recognise the contribution carers make”. Well, that “earliest opportunity” still has not arrived. Challenges raised in that report remain unaddressed 16 years later. We know that the Department has conducted research to support policy development on carer’s allowance. In the response to a 2019 Select Committee report, it promised to publish that research. It has never been published—we still have not seen it.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Christina Rees) on the good way in which she opened this important debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Elliot. The Work and Pensions Committee is taking a close interest in the discussions around carers, and I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) here; she has taken a lot of interest in this issue. I have a particular personal interest in the debate because my constituency accounts for the largest number of signatures on the petition—73—so I thought it was particularly important for me to be here.”
“Will the Minister respond specifically to my point about the Government’s response to the Select Committee report five years ago? Paragraph 20 says: “The VEP Service receives the same information Universal Credit…receives from HMRC…A notification is automatically received by VEP when the weekly net pay exceeds the CA”— carer’s allowance— “earnings limit…The VEP Service then applies a series of…rules…to determine if a VEP Alert should be sent on to the CA Unit to action.” It is puzzling that the Department knows when that is being overpaid, but seems not to be doing anything. Why is that?”
“The Minister referred to the problem of food security. It does seem very likely that the planting season will be disrupted again this year. What are the implications for food security in Sudan and South Sudan this autumn and into next year? Has a target been set for the amount of international aid to be gathered to deal with that looming crisis?”
“I welcome the support of the Prime Minister and the Government for the resolution on Gaza adopted recently by the United Nations Security Council. Israel is currently in breach of that resolution. How does that affect the Prime Minister’s view of the current actions of Israel in the middle east?”
“Secondly, the cash provided by PIP is designed to cover the extra costs arising from people’s disabilities. Of course, the amounts will vary from one person to another, but during the Select Committee’s recent inquiry on benefit levels, the New Economics Foundation told us that on average PIP covers only just over a third of the additional income that a disabled person requires to afford a decent standard of living. I welcome the Government’s commitment, in last month’s disability action plan, to set up an extra costs taskforce that will assess those extra costs. Can the Minister tell us when that taskforce will start its work? One practical proposition is to increase the number of levels in PIP—there were more in DLA—so that a better proxy for people’s extra costs could be provided.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) on securing the debate. There are two points that emerge from the recent work of the Work and Pensions Committee. First, PIP assessments should routinely be recorded. We know that the assessments very often go wrong—we have heard lots of examples of that already—but we do not know why. They should routinely be recorded, with an opt-out available for claimants who do not want a recording to be taken. All the providers agree with that proposal, but for some reason the Government will not accept it. The Minister’s predecessor gave a number of reasons, which were all valid but all surmountable. Because we do not record the assessments, we do not know what is going on, so the problems just carry on and will not be fixed.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for picking up my point about default recording and for her offer to look into it. When she does so, will she bear it in mind that all the companies that provide these assessments favour default recordings?”
“I, too, warmly welcome yesterday’s resolution, and the change in the Government’s position that supported it. As both sides are now in clear conflict, with a clear breach of a United Nations Security Council resolution that was supported by the UK, what are the implications for future UK arms sales to Israel?”
“I thank the Minister for meeting leaseholders from Barrier Point in my constituency last week. During a Zoom call last night, leaseholders from Waterside Park made it clear that although the original builders and the current freeholder had agreed on the specification of the work to be carried out, the work itself was being held up by quibbling between their respective lawyers over details. Is there anything that the Minister or his Department can do to knock heads together and get this long-awaited work under way?”
“Does the Secretary of State agree with the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, as I do, that those affected should not have to wait for the outcome of a Select Committee inquiry before learning the Government’s response? The equalisation of the state pension age was legislated for in 1995, giving 15 years’ notice to those affected. The 2011 changes, which accelerated the process, gave much less than 10 years’ notice to those affected. Is one of the lessons about what has gone wrong that we must ensure major changes of this kind provide at least 10 years’ notice, or preferably 15 years’ notice, before those changes take effect?”
“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?”
“The Secretary of State, in my view very unwisely, recently closed down the Inter Faith Network, which facilitates the kind of dialogue he praised in his statement. He closed it down on the grounds that one of its 22 trustees is connected with the Muslim Council of Britain. If an organisation unjustly finds itself on his proposed list, will it have the opportunity to appeal against its inclusion?”
“My hon. Friend is making a powerful case on national insurance. Does he agree that the plan to abolish national insurance raises fundamental questions about the future of the state pension? Even if income tax were increased by 8p in the pound to pay for it, the question of eligibility for the state pension and other contributory benefits would be very difficult to address.”
“If the household support fund does end in September, a significant number of councils will end local welfare assistance altogether in their areas. The Government support local provision, but they need to fund it as well, and one important advantage of the household support fund is that a large number of councils have been able to support families with no recourse to public funds when other help is not available to them at all. I very much hope that the campaign to make the household support fund permanent will be accepted by the Government.”
“It would be good to hear from the Government about when they will get on and move auto-enrolment to the next stage. I, like other Members who have spoken in the debate, welcome the Chancellor’s extension to the household support fund. It has been crucial in supporting families through the cost of living crisis and in enabling local councils to reach those who most need help, but as we heard from the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), there is a strong case not just for extending the fund for six months but making it permanent. Local welfare assistance replaced the old social fund in 2014. Money was transferred to local authority budgets, but it has increasingly been squeezed out in subsequent cuts.”
“The Work and Pensions Committee has reported a widespread consensus in favour of the 2017 auto-enrolment review recommendations. The legislation received Royal Assent last September, but we now need a consultation on how it will be implemented and when. If the Minister is able to tell us when that is likely to happen, it would be of great interest. We also highlighted the “consensus that many people need to increase their pension contributions if they are to have an adequate income in retirement.” We said: “The middle of a cost of living crisis is not the time to ask people to pay more into their pension. However, if they are to do so in the future”— as they need to— “work to prepare the ground needs to start now to build consensus” on the need for the change that must come.”
“The Association of British Insurers said that the model would “re-engineer auto-enrolment ”, and warned that “We must not lose sight of the great success of automatic enrolment, while acknowledging that there are key reforms already underway…that need to be completed.” The TUC described the proposal as a “gimmick” and a “dangerous distraction ”, likely to “lead to higher charges and lower retirement incomes for most workers, with the lowest paid the greatest at risk of getting ripped off.” Lane Clark & Peacock, where the former Pensions Minister Steve Webb now works, said that the model was “fundamentally flawed”. I was therefore relieved that the Chancellor was not rushing ahead with the proposal. I wish we had seen more progress elsewhere.”
“A major trade body, the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, said that there was “no evidence” that the lifetime provider model would help savers, but that it had “the potential to significantly undermine the successes of AE”. It warned of a “sharp increase in marketing and product costs which will ultimately be borne by savers.” It also suggested alternative ways in which to tackle lost and small pots, and to deliver the consolidation that is, undoubtedly, very important.”
“The proposal is driven by the laudable aim of consolidating pension schemes to gather resources to invest in the economy, which is an important part of tackling the productivity challenge of which we have spoken today. However, many of the responses to the Government’s consultation on it opposed the particular model on which the Chancellor had consulted—the “lifetime pension pot” model—because it would substantially increase costs and complexity for employers, whose support in pension provision has been important to the progress that has been made. At the very least, adopting this model would have the damaging effect of ending the cross-party consensus on pensions policy that has been so important to the progress of auto-enrolment over the last 20 years.”
“Let me associate myself with what my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) and for West Ham (Ms Brown) said about the scale of the hardships being faced by so many residents of the London boroughs that all three of us represent. In his Budget speech, the Chancellor said that the Government would “continue to explore how savers could be allowed to take their pension pots with them when they change job.” —[ Official Report , 6 March 2024; Vol. 746, c. 843.] I am pleased that the Economic Secretary is present, because I was relieved that the Chancellor did not commit himself to pursuing that particular course at this stage.”
“On growth, it was the former Prime Minister, when seeking election as leader of her party, who characterised the growth record since 2010 as lamentable. She was surely absolutely right about that particular point.”
“The Minister is right that I warmly welcome that extension. Is there not a strong case for making the household support fund permanent, not just extending it for another six months?”
“She has simply been told by the service that it is not bound by promises made to her by a former chief executive. She will be back to random caseworkers and the debilitating need to go through her story every time, which so many people talked to us about during our inquiry.”
“In the written answer that I referred to earlier, the Minister said that the Department had started a pilot and it would be evaluated. Can the Minister tell us when that will be and how the pilots went? I am worried about that, because yesterday I spoke to Rachel Parkin, who gave evidence to the Committee’s inquiry. She is an abuse victim. The former CMS chief executive apologised to Rachel for how her case was handled, assured her that she would be on collect and pay permanently and that she would be in the pilot of a single caseworker. She had a single caseworker for a period of eight months. Her calls in that period were automatically routed to the right caseworker—it worked very well—and she made real headway in resolving long-standing difficulties, but now, without any explanation, she is being put back on direct pay.”
“On the first recommendation, the Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Act 2023 received Royal Assent last July; I am pleased to see the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) in her place this morning as well. Where there is evidence of domestic abuse, a parent can set up collect and pay at the start instead of first trying direct pay, so the two parents need not be in contact. Last September, a written answer said that bringing the Act into force would require consultation and secondary legislation. Can the Minister tell us what the timetable is for those? Our report asked for a timetable for all the work arising from the Callan review. One strand of that is a pilot of single, named caseworkers for complex domestic abuse cases.”
“The secondary legislation on that will specify the notice that CMS must give to the paying parent before making an order—seven days for those living in the UK and 28 days for those overseas—and set out the process for paying parents who want to challenge a liability order. The Government published their response to the consultation on that two weeks ago, on 12 February. Can the Minister tell us when the secondary legislation will be introduced? Another set of recommendations in our report was about domestic abuse. In October 2021, the Government asked Dr Samantha Callan, who I already mentioned briefly, to conduct an independent review of CMS processes and procedures for supporting parents subject to domestic abuse. Her report was published in January 2023, and the Government accepted eight of its 10 recommendations.”
“The Committee also raised concerns about collect and pay. About half of paying parents with those arrangements do not pay or pay less than they should. We heard that enforcement is slow and often ineffective, so we welcomed the Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023. That was taken through the House by the hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie), who I am delighted is in her place this morning and who makes a distinguished contribution to the work of the Committee. The Act aims to speed up enforcement by allowing CMS to make administrative liability orders when a paying parent has not paid and deduction of earnings is not appropriate. Previously, CMS needed to apply to a court for a liability order, taking up to 22 weeks.”
“The CMS was established to deliver more effective maintenance arrangements, but there is little data on how many direct pay arrangements are effective. We do not know how much child maintenance is not being paid. We asked DWP to monitor the effectiveness of the arrangements proactively—for example, with yearly surveys of parents with direct pay arrangements—but the Government said no to that. My question to the Minister is: what are the Government’s plans for monitoring that for research on the subject? Does the Department think that it understands the effectiveness of direct pay? If so, what evidence is it using? We do not think that it does. How many direct pay arrangements switched to collect and pay or family-based arrangements in the first 12 months? Does the Department know why that is happening?”
“The Minister in the Lords told us in correspondence that the review would be wide ranging and take some time. When the Minister winds up, will he tell us whether we can expect changes before the election? This is urgent. We have heard of paying parents taking their own lives, because the demands being made of them are simply impossible for them to meet. I was in touch yesterday with Mr Ian Briggs, whose son, Gavin Briggs, took his own life. Mr Ian Briggs told me that on 26 June 2020, the CMS sent his son a letter telling him he owed nearly £16,000. His son took his life a few days after that on 1 July, and on that day his account showed less than £4,000 in arrears. Mr Briggs asks: “How can this be possible?” He has had no answer to that question.”
“The bands for calculating maintenance are in primary legislation, so it is hard to change them. Christine Davies, who is honorary senior lecturer in mathematics at Royal Holloway, University of London, told us that because inflation over the past quarter of a century has not been allowed for, someone earning £15,000 today should, according to the scheme’s original intentions, be paying £364 per year in maintenance, but is actually required to pay almost 10 times that or £3,500 per year. The Callan review called for the formula to include both parents’ income, instead of only the paying parent’s. The Government rejected that, but said they would explore the possibility in their review of the calculation formula. The Government have committed—I welcome this—to a “fundamental review” of the child maintenance calculation.”
“The National Audit Office says that about half receive at least some child maintenance, and one in three has an arrangement that is satisfied in full. Of those with any arrangement, around 500,000 were on direct pay or collect and pay, but nearly 1 million had a family-based, non-statutory arrangement. The National Audit Office made the point that take up of the CMS has been lower than expected, for reasons that the Department does not know, and that setting up the CMS has not increased the number of effective child maintenance arrangements. Our report made recommendations about the calculation of child maintenance. The maintenance assessed for some parents—I think this is now widely acknowledged—is unaffordable in some cases, causing serious hardship.”
“Child maintenance is paid in three ways: non-statutory, family-based arrangements, in which the CMS plays no part; direct pay, where the CMS calculates the amount due and draws up a schedule, but the parents themselves arrange payment; and, thirdly, collect and pay, where the CMS calculates the maintenance owed, collects it from the paying parent and transfers it to the receiving parent. For direct pay, there was, until yesterday I think, a £20 application fee, waived for under-19s and in cases of domestic abuse. For collect and pay, the paying parent pays an extra 20% of the maintenance owed and the receiving parent receives just 96% of what they would have under direct pay. The Department for Work and Pensions reported 2.5 million separated families in Great Britain in March 2022, with 4 million children in those families.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the Child Maintenance Service. I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allocating this debate, prompted by the Select Committee on Work and Pensions inquiry on the Child Maintenance Service. We published our report last April, and the Government their response in July. The Child Maintenance Service, which I shall refer to as the CMS, was introduced in 2012 to replace the Child Support Agency.”
“The service does have a very tough job, against a backdrop of pain and conflict; it is very difficult to provide a good service in that situation, but can the Minister offer us any prospect that the improvements needed will be made?”
“The Government have just introduced, as I mentioned earlier, secondary legislation to remove the £20 fee for all parents who apply for a statutory maintenance arrangement. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that that took effect yesterday as planned. The same secondary legislation also introduced new powers for the Secretary of State to write off maintenance arrears under £7 in certain circumstances. Finally, I want to make this point. There are, as all of us in the House well know, unending complaints about very poor customer service from the CMS. It is very difficult to get through; calls go unanswered. There are incorrect assessments, and people are having to tell their story again from scratch on every call.”
“Can the Minister tell us what exactly risk profiling and threat scanning are in practice? We recommended that there should be specialist caseworkers for cases in which the paying parent’s income is from self-employment. In correspondence, the Minister in the other place who has responsibility for this part of the Department’s work, Lord Younger, pushed back on that, on the grounds of “funding implications”. However, the Department has said that it will legislate to ensure that unearned income, such as savings, investments, dividends and property income, is taken into account automatically when maintenance is calculated, to make it more difficult for “the small number of parents who avoid paying the correct amount.” Can this Minister tell us when that legislation will be introduced?”
“The Public Accounts Committee, in its 2022 report— two years ago—said that the Department had “not taken responsibility for detecting child maintenance fraud” and had shifted the burden to receiving parents, who were expected to challenge false assessments. The Committee pointed out that a paying parent who was notified of being investigated for understating their income would no doubt guess that their ex-partner had reported them, and as a result, the Committee warned, many receiving parents would not report. I think that the Committee was right to make that point. In response, the Department said that it used risk profiling and threat scanning to target fraud in the child maintenance system and that it already had proportionate and cost-effective controls.”
“The hon. Member makes a very important point, and I think he is right. I very much welcome his work and that of his colleagues on the Public Accounts Committee in drawing attention to a number of these problems. I ask the Minister whether the idea of a single caseworker has now been abandoned. Is a domestic abuse team still in place or has that whole initiative, which the CMS talked to the Public Accounts Committee about last year, I think, now been given up? Why is it that someone such as Rachel Parkin has gone back to the arrangements that she was promised she would not? In our report, we also raised concerns about paying parents who fraudulently attempt to reduce their maintenance assessment and about the fact that the Department does not estimate levels of fraud and error.”
“I take the point entirely about the complexity of the review’s underlying formula, which the Minister has just been talking about. Can he give us any sense of how long he envisages that review will take to complete?”
“Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) about somebody who was told over the phone that he did not have any arrears, and yet he received a demand and deduction of earnings order to pay arrears. The hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) made a point about people receiving several notices with contradictory figures. Such muddle and confusion is terribly damaging. The stakes are really high. People are losing their lives. We must be able to come up with a system that delivers basic competence. On the single caseworker, I was very concerned— I am grateful to the Minister for his assurance about a letter about that—but the implication was that that would be spread out to the whole system. I really hope that it is. Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).”
“I thank everybody who has contributed to this important debate. We all deal with people who struggle with the Child Maintenance Service, so I am grateful for all the contributions that have been made. I welcomed the very constructive contribution that my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) made from the Front Bench. She is absolutely right that if there were more regular updates to Members about what is going on, that would be really helpful, given the changes that are happening. On a couple of areas that we have touched on in the debate, first is the concern about paying parents. I am grateful to the Minister for his commitment that that fundamental review is under way. It would certainly be helpful to know how long he anticipates that review is going to take. I was struck by the example given by the right hon.”