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 wish to raise concerns specifically about the guaranteed minimum pension, which is the subject of the order. Concerns have been raised by the public with the Select Committee. The ombudsman investigated complaints from two people, and concluded that there had been maladministration in introducing the new state pension system in 2016 over its impact on people with a guaranteed minimum pension. The concern being raised in correspondence since is that the problem identified by the ombudsman still has not been properly addressed.”
“It has been estimated that 40,000 people were scammed out of their pensions in the five years after the pension freedoms took effect in 2015; attractive deals on Google or Facebook turn out all too often to be a fraud. Will the Prime Minister ensure that the planned online harms Bill tackles online financial harms, to address this very serious problem?”
“Newham Community Project in my constituency is supporting 1,700 destitute overseas students with weekly food parcels. Those students have paid us a great compliment by choosing Britain to provide them with education and many of them have paid £12,000 a year or more in fees; they should not now be left now without food. Who has the duty of care for those overseas students?”
“Kensington Primary School in East Ham is the Pearson national teaching awards primary school of the year. The school asked for 100 devices for children to learn, although it needs more than that. It has received 32 so far. When can it expect the rest? The Minister has indicated that there are about half a million devices that have been purchased but not yet distributed. When will they all be given, and will the Department be purchasing more?”
“But people claiming severe disability premium cannot switch to universal credit; they are not allowed to. The costs facing many in that group have increased by more than average during the pandemic. Why is that particular group denied the £20 a week increase?”
“What assessment the Church of England has made of the effectiveness of partnerships between local authorities and faith groups in providing support to vulnerable people during the covid-19 outbreak.”
“The “Keeping the Faith” report in November showed the remarkable extent to which local councils have turned to churches and other faith groups during the pandemic, especially for help in distributing food, and how positive an experience for councils this has proved to be. Will the Church of England urge Ministers to help these new partnerships with local councils continue beyond the pandemic?”
“Is it now the policy of the Department, as the Prime Minister suggested at the Liaison Committee last week, that people should move from legacy benefits to universal credit in order to gain the £20 per week increase? If that is now the policy, what about the position of those who have been receiving the severe disability premium, who are not allowed to move to universal credit?”
“There was one very telling point in the briefing circulated by the British Association of Social Workers: the sharp increase in children in care, up from 60,000 to 80,000, with the enormous cost that that imposes, began when the cuts to benefits began. It is a false economy. The £20 a week should be left in place.”
“How can it be right that people have to wait until March to find out whether universal credit will be cut by almost a quarter at the end of March? How are struggling families supposed to plan? What justification can there be for having left jobseeker’s allowance and employment and support allowance unchanged? Those claiming them are in exactly the same position as people claiming universal credit. People receiving the severe disability premium have not been allowed to switch to universal credit, even if they wanted to. Why have Ministers singled out disabled people for such harshness? If the cut goes ahead, it will push child poverty up to levels we have not seen since 1997. There is no justification for going back to £72 per week.”
“On a unanimous, all-party basis, my Committee recommended new starter payments equivalent to three weeks’ worth of standard universal credit, to tide people over in those difficult first few weeks. The Government’s response simply dismissed that recommendation and all the recommendations. Of course, the Government can reject our recommendations. They could carry out their own analysis and reach different conclusions. We recommended that the Department should do its own research on the impact of the five-week wait on food bank demand, rent arrears and claimants’ mental health. The response was: “The Department will not be conducting nor commissioning any research.” That was it. The Government do not want to know. They have lost the capacity to listen.”
“The problem is that the Government have lost the capacity to listen—to listen to their own Back Benchers, to the all-party Work and Pensions Committee, to people claiming universal credit and to the public. That was clear in the contemptuous dismissal of my Committee’s report on the five-week delay between applying for universal credit and receiving the first regular payment. The Government response to that report was published last week. In our meetings, we studied the evidence, sifted the material and listened carefully to what Ministers said in response. It is clear that the five-week delay is forcing people to food banks and pushing them into rent arrears. Social security is supposed to protect people from those things, not induce them as it does at the moment.”
“Is it not unreasonable to force families who claim universal credit to wait until March to find out whether the rate of benefit will be cut by nearly a quarter at the end of March? Surely the Government need to announce their decision sooner.”
“Meeting in the USA and in India, Donald Trump and Narendra Modi have heaped praise on each other. At the moment, we are seeing where America-first politics leads playing out in the US. Every community needs to feel protected; it is not enough to protect only the majority, and the authorities in India need to act against those who perpetrate violence towards Muslims, Christians, Dalits, humanists and other religious minorities.”
“A report from the London School of Economics published at the end of 2019 entitled “WhatsApp Vigilantes” refers to more than a hundred lynchings since 2015, many against Dalits, Muslims, Christians and Adivasis, carried out by “mobs of vigilantes who use peer-to-peer messaging applications such as WhatsApp to spread lies about the victims, and use misinformation to mobilise, defend, and in some cases to document and circulate images of their violence.” We have been reminded that covid-19 seems to have increased the problems. When our Prime Minister visits India, he must raise this issue.When Ministers such as the one who is with us this morning visit India, I hope they will meet religious minorities. That will be a huge source of encouragement.”
“The problem is, and this point has rightly been made, that it is not that the state is perpetrating violence against minority religions but, to quote Christian Solidarity Worldwide: “Right-wing groups are emboldened by a culture of impunity due to state negligence or complicity.” Government inaction has meant that mob lynching against Muslims and Dalits and violence against Christians and humanists are increasing. The Government are not always negligent, but they have often been negligent.”
“Human Rights Watch reported in 2019: “The government failed to properly enforce Supreme Court directives to prevent and investigate mob attacks”. India remained in the top 10 last year. Open Doors reports four religiously motivated murders of Christians in the first half of 2020 and eight just in the third quarter. We have been reminded that Christians and Muslims account for 20% of India’s population. I paid a wonderful visit to Kerala in 2017 where the location of churches established by the Apostle Thomas were pointed out to me. Islam arrived between the 12th and 16th centuries. Both religions have been very significant in India’s development.”
“For the last two years, India has been in 10th place on that list of the worst countries for the persecution of Christians, and the position is not going to improve, as I understand it, in the list being published tomorrow. Now that would once have been unconceivable; 10 years ago it was down at No. 32. The current Indian Government was elected in 2014 and in 2016, Open Doors put India for the first time among the world’s worst 20 countries and the report that year referred to “a surge of militant Hindu pressure on religious minorities, most frequently Muslims and Christians.” In 2019, India entered the worst 10 countries. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended that year that India be designated a country of particular concern.”
“There is an indivisible historic bond that we have been reminded of between the UK and India. India is rightly admired as the world’s biggest democracy, and its economic achievements have been staggering. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) rightly paid tribute to the constitution of India drawn up under the leadership of Dr B. R. Ambedkar, which says “all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion.” It is a model for such a vast and richly diverse nation. However, India is seeing growing violence against religious minorities. As the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) said, the latest Open Doors World Watch List will be launched tomorrow.”
“Will the additional funding that the Secretary of State has announced for tackling homelessness ensure that councils can continue to put a roof over the heads of people with no recourse to public funds? The local authorities that gave evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee last week welcomed the Government’s winter support package for hard-pressed families, but it runs only until March. Does the Secretary of State have longer-term plans for how councils can support vulnerable households, so that councils can make their plans for the future?”
“The Minister’s Department rightly made it clear at the outset that councils should provide shelter for people sleeping rough, even if those people had no recourse to public funds. However, the legal unclarity has made matters harder, and sadly the enlightenment of the Minister’s Department has not been emulated by the Home Office. Government guidance has not been updated on what assistance can be accessed by people with no recourse to public funds. So, will the Minister press her colleagues in the Home Office to do what the Women and Equalities Committee—a Committee chaired by a former Home Office Minister, the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes)— recommended unanimously in its report published yesterday, and suspend the no recourse to public funds restriction for the duration of the pandemic?”
“Member for Cities of London and Westminster highlighted in her opening speech about people with leave to remain in the UK but no recourse to public funds. The Local Government Association brief for this debate highlights the large number seen by councils who, their work stopped because of the pandemic, are unable to claim benefits because of the no recourse to public funds condition, and who face homelessness and destitution. Expectations on councils to support people with NRPF have changed during the pandemic. Councils are obliged in law to support families and adults with care and support needs, but not others. Local welfare funds, provided through councils, are not available to those with NRPF.”
“I welcome the imaginative support that the Minister’s Department, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, has been providing to that network lately. This year the network are working on alternative covid-safe provision. Unavoidably, that means less capacity. I think the Department has provided about £2 million to support their work, to enable them to operate in a covid-safe way. I commend the Department and the night shelters. Last February, St Paul’s Cathedral hosted a service to celebrate their work and to thank the hundreds of volunteers who keep them going. Everybody there will have agreed with the Bishop of Edmonton, the chair of Housing Justice, who was the preacher, that volunteers should not have to do that work. I want to refer to a point that the hon.”
“In reality, we are not going to end rough sleeping without a substantial programme of new social house building. I see no sign of that happening. Without it, we are not going to end rough sleeping. I particularly want to pay tribute to the network of church-based homelessness night shelters in London that operate in winter. At least one has been set up in every London borough. Seven or 14 churches take it in turns to gather volunteers to provide a hot meal, a bed and some breakfast to rough sleepers, one night per week. In past years, for hundreds of people it has been the only alternative to sleeping rough. I pay tribute to Housing Justice, which supports their work and liaises between them and the Mayor of London.”
“Thank you, Mrs Miller. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) on securing the debate, and I agree with a great deal of what she had to say. Like her, I see what is happening around Westminster. I came in via the Embankment this morning and it is impossible to miss the tents under Hungerford bridge, where a growing number of people seem to be making their homes. It shames all of us that in this city so many are sleeping rough in that way. The one policy that could deal with that effectively is a substantial programme of investment in social housing. I recognise that Ministers are sincere in wanting to end the scourge of rough sleeping, and I acknowledge the commitment that the Government have made.”
“The Work and Pensions Committee is inquiring into pension scams. Much of that problem is online, boosting the profits of tech firms and causing immense hardship. Martin Lewis, Which?, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) on the Front Bench and others have called for such scams to be in scope here. The right hon. Gentleman says they will be if they are “user-generated”, so can he explain how these measures will address the very serious problem of financial online harms?”
“In acknowledging its importance yesterday, the Minister for the Cabinet Office told me that he could “see no reason why” a data adequacy agreement with the EU should not be in place by the end of the month. Will the Minister confirm that one has actually been applied for? When is a decision expected? Does she recognise that, in the national interest, we must have one?”
“If there is no data adequacy agreement by the end of this month, what is the right hon. Gentleman’s current estimate of the legal and admin cost to businesses of putting in place the new contractual clauses they will have to introduce in order to continue to exchange data with their European partners?”
“Her advice—to raise it directly with the pensions department of the Kenyan Treasury—was not very helpful. Both Mr Sekhon and Mr Singh had tried that already, without success.”
“Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) has devoted a lot of effort on behalf of two people, both former teachers in Kenya before they came to the UK in 1975. They claimed pensions in the mid-1990s. Later on, they inquired whether their payments would be adjusted for inflation, and at that point the payments stopped. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), who has led this campaign with great energy on behalf of her constituent Mr Sohan Singh. He is in the same position. His Kenyan pension has not been paid since 29 March 2019. Crown Agents says it has not received the payment. My hon. Friend took Mr Singh’s case up with the former Minister, the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin).”
“A couple of years later, he asked the Kenyan high commission about his Kenyan civil service pension. He was relieved to learn that he would receive a pension of £1,154.07 per year, paid through Crown Agents. He received monthly payments thereafter—in the year ending 5 April 2019, he received £1,546.45—but then the payments stopped. Crown Agents says it has not been paid by the Kenyan Government. I wrote to the Kenyan high commissioner in June last year. He replied very quickly, within a couple of weeks, and asked Mr Sekhon to provide “urgently” a number of documents to the high commission. Mr Sekhon did so, but he is still waiting for the money he is owed. Other Members have constituents in a similar position. My hon.”
“I am grateful to Mr Speaker for granting this debate. I thank the Minister and his colleagues for their assistance to me and other Members—a number are in the Chamber this evening—as we seek justice for our constituents. I hope that tonight’s debate might push things a little further. In April last year, I was approached by my constituent Mr Balbir Singh Sekhon. I have known him since 1984, the year he took up work as a traffic warden with the Metropolitan police and I became his local councillor. He migrated from India to Kenya in 1956. For 18 years, from 1957 to 1975, he was a secondary teacher in Kenya. He was offered and took up British citizenship during that time. For the last 12 of the 18 years, he taught English language and geography at Nairobi Technical High School. Mr Sekhon retired in the UK 1994.”
“The pension of anyone who did not meet the above criteria above remained the responsibility of the Government of Kenya. This is why some pensions are paid by HMG and others, such as” the constituent “by Crown Agents on behalf of the Government of Kenya.””
“My hon. Friend is quite right. There is no evidence of any reply having been received to those inquiries. I do not know how many times the question has been asked, but perhaps the Minister can shed some light on what is going on. After that initial response, my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West did receive a further letter from the Minister, which explained something that I thought was helpful and worth informing the House of. To quote from the reply to her: “In very broad terms, HMG accepted responsibility for the pensions of those who were employed in Kenya on expatriate terms (i.e. had paid leave passages outside the country during their employment) and who were not citizens of Kenya on 1st April 1971 or the date of retirement if later.”
“On 9 July 2013, the then Member for Brentford and Isleworth asked what recent discussions the Foreign Secretary had had with the Government of Kenya. The then Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Mark Simmonds, answered: “In recent years we have raised this issue with Kenyan Government officials on a number of occasions, including—””
“In 2009, Vince Cable tabled a written question to the Foreign Office, to ask the Foreign Secretary “what recent representations he has made to the government of Kenya on the non-payment of pensions to retired Kenyan civil servants with British citizenship who are resident in that country.” The Minister, Ivan Lewis, replied: “The Government are very concerned by the Freezing Order issued by the High Court on 23 October 2009 on accounts belonging to the Government of Kenya held by Crown Agents Bank. The freezing of these accounts affects the payment of pensions to former Kenyan civil servants. We are raising the issue with the Government of Kenya who are fully aware of their responsibilities in the matter.” —[ Official Report , 3 December 2009; Vol. 501, c. 880W.] So this is not an entirely new problem.”
“Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West tabled a written question on 21 February. The Minister, who I am pleased to say is in his place tonight, replied that his Department had been in touch, again, with the Kenyan Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the head of the Department for Pensions in Kenya for an explanation, and he added in that answer that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was now helping the Kenyan National Treasury to contact Crown Agents Bank to expedite the reinstatement of the pensions. That was encouraging, but, over nine months later, the situation remains unchanged: the pensions have not been paid. There is some history here.”
“Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) has already told us, that “the British High Commission in Nairobi has written to the Kenyan Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Head of the Department for Pensions in the Kenyan National Treasury seeking an explanation for non-payment of pensions to former Kenyan civil servants and the lack of increase in line with inflation.” That Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge)—assured my hon. Friend that his officials would be in touch when they received a response. As far as I know, nobody has ever heard any information about that response, whether or not one was received, but in any case there was no progress. My hon.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I think he raises an important point. Of course, today their Government is our Government; in the past, they were living under another Government, and we do not quite know what has happened or why these payments have ceased. However, he is absolutely right, and I am grateful for the way he has expressed it: it is right for Members of the House to raise these issues here in the hope that the Government can prevail and that their influence can ensure these payments resume. There was a further letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth from the hon. Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson), who moved to the Foreign Office in the reshuffle that summer, which said, as my hon.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I must say, I think my constituent has received inflation increases. There does seem to be some variability about who has received them over the last couple of decades. Who knows what the reason for that is? I was just reading a written answer from 2013, which concludes: “British high commission staff in Nairobi asked the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs about public sector pensions on 2 July 2013 and are awaiting a response.” —[ Official Report , 9 July 2013; Vol. 566, c. 143W.] That was seven years ago. Whether any response was received at that time, I do not know, but I certainly do not think any Member here has seen a response to any of these questions, which clearly have frequently been asked.”
“Why is it that our constituents have not been paid at all since the spring of last year? Lastly, what is the Department’s plan should the Kenyan Government continue to withhold these payments to which our constituents are entitled? Our constituents have not received the pension that they are entitled to for almost two years. Some have been waiting longer. Many, as my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston has said, are elderly. They are entitled to their pension, and there is an issue of dignity here. These people have worked and they are expecting to receive the fair pension that they are entitled to.”
“The Foreign Secretary confirmed to me in Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office questions last month that he would look to arrange the meeting, so we look forward to that. I wonder whether the Minister can clarify the following tonight. First, how many people living in the UK does the Foreign Office think are affected by the non-payment of Kenyan pensions and, perhaps separately, by the issue that has been surfaced in this debate about the non-uprating of some of those pensions that have been in payment? Secondly, can the Minister tell the House what recent discussions he has had about this with his Kenyan counterparts? Clearly the Foreign Office has asked about this on quite a few occasions. Has it received an answer from the Government of Kenya to any of its inquiries? What does the Minister make of it all?”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is no dispute at all that our constituents are entitled to these payments. A promise has been made to them, and the Government of Kenya need to honour their promise to his constituent and to all the others. Coming forward to this year, last month, I co-signed a letter to the Minister with my hon. Friends the Members for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas), for Slough (Mr Dhesi) and for Feltham and Heston and the hon. Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow), who I see in his place, asking that the Minister meet us to discuss what further steps the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will take to ensure that these pensions are reinstated and uprated in line with inflation.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She sums up the message of the debate extremely well. I hope that the Minister will provide some hope for our constituents that this matter will finally be resolved, and I look forward to hearing his answers after others have contributed to the debate.”
“It also runs the East London Research School along with a primary and a secondary school to improve the quality and impact of professional development. Those are all valuable and positive contributions. Funding for maintained nurseries must recognise the greater contribution that they make. I am particularly keen to hear from the Minister about the longer-term funding settlement that she is planning.”
“Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb), visited Sheringham Nursery in my constituency in October last year. It works brilliantly with disadvantaged children—for example, supporting their parents to teach them when they are not at nursery. I pay tribute to the head, Dr Julian Grenier, for all his work and the work of his team, which has a really big, positive impact in the local community. Maintained nurseries have more children than average with special educational needs and disabilities. Sheringham has 40 out of a roll of 200. It runs the Newham early years hub, supporting 100 private nurseries and childminders to improve education quality and inclusion, and increasing workforce standards and workforce numbers.”
“In other words, more than half of group-based providers expect to close within a year. Even maintaining current provision will be a big challenge, and policy announcements so far are nowhere near enough. Like the hon. Member for Winchester, I welcomed the additional funding for maintained nurseries in the spending review, and I was pleased that the Minister said she will soon announce a long-term settlement for maintained nurseries. I hope that we might hear something about that this afternoon. Last year’s Frontier Economics report on maintained nurseries pointed out that they do a great job in supporting children with special educational needs, as the hon. Member for Winchester reminded us, and supporting parents and families as well. The Minister for School Standards, the right hon.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) on securing this debate and on the powerful and effective speech that he made. I am delighted to see you in the Chair, Ms Ali. We have an early years crisis. Ofsted reports that there were 14,000 fewer childcare providers last March than in March 2015, because of the market failure that the hon. Member for Winchester described. We all recognise that the pandemic has made things much worse. Provider numbers fell by another 500 in just three months this year. It is a fragile sector. Striking research that the Department commissioned from NatCen and Frontier Economics, published in October, stated that 45% of open group-based providers and 55% of open childminders “reported that they believe it will be financially sustainable to continue for another year or longer”.”
“They change their GP every time, and sometimes their school, and they do not get any choice. And often they do not even dare to ask for repairs. I pay tribute to the Magpie Project in our borough, set up by Jane Williams. It does superb and caring work among families in temporary accommodation. Many have been hit by the benefit cap. Three quarters have no recourse to public funds. Will the Minister take forward the two specific things that I mentioned—regulation on standards and protections for children?”
“At the moment they have fewer education rights than other children, and an article in The Lancet earlier this year pointed out that they are at high risk of “immediate and long-term effects on growth…health, and brain development.” Newham has the largest number and highest proportion of households in temporary accommodation and spends the most on it. The figure was more than £60 million in 2017-18. One problem is that the borough represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) is competing with my borough for accommodation, and that forces the price up. A lot of the housing used is in dreadful condition. Rooms are damp and mouldy, as my hon. Friend pointed out, and children develop breathing problems. Families move frequently.”