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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“As we have heard, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions told us that, when someone is just below the threshold, the jobcentre will advise them not to put in any more effort, not to get a pay rise and not to put in more hours. The jobcentre will recognise that, if they were to do that, they would end up worse off.”
“Instead of solving the problem, they have simply adopted a very lazy solution. In doing so, they are creating a very big problem for work incentives in the welfare system. One day, future Ministers will have to resolve that problem. It is disappointing that under the leadership of the Secretary of State, who understands universal credit as well as anybody, they have gone down this very lazy line. My hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) has just quoted from the universal credit White Paper, which sets out the philosophy that underpins the new benefit. I will quote another bit from chapter 2, which makes clear the principle that “increased effort will always result in increased reward.” That is what UC is supposed to be about, but under these proposals that will not the case.”
“I want to focus on a single point. The proposals for eligibility for free school meals are catastrophic for work incentives in the welfare system. The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith)—I am sad to see that he is not in his place—used to tell us that the central point of welfare reform was to improve work incentives, but these proposals rob universal credit of its most attractive feature. The Secretary of State for Education used to be in charge of universal credit, but this is not so much a criticism of him as a criticism of his predecessors. Ministers in the Department for Education have had seven years to solve the problem—admittedly, it is difficult and technical—of how to define eligibility for free school meals against the backdrop of universal credit.”
“Among those are 125,000 families earning below the threshold who risk being worse off if they take on extra work or get a pay rise, as the Work and Pensions Secretary recognised. In addition, there are 150,000 families earning above the threshold who would be better off if they reduced their earnings to below the threshold, so that they would then qualify for free school meals. What sort of system is that? Everybody will recognise that we do not want a welfare system that puts people in that position, but that is the system we will end up with if this statutory instrument goes through. The Children’s Society calculates that almost 21,000 families—containing more than 80,000 children aged eight to 15—who earn more than £7,400 would be better off if they cut their earnings to below the threshold to qualify for school meals.”
“Surely all of us would recognise that the point about this system is to encourage progression, not to have bureaucrats telling people, “Oh no, don’t progress because if you do, you’ll end up worse off.” This is a catastrophic holing of the whole purpose of UC, and it is not as though only a few people will be affected. The prospectus was that UC would solve all these cliff edges and benefit traps, but instead it is creating one that is much bigger. It has been calculated—I am indebted to the Children’s Society for this calculation—that more than 1 million people will be caught in the trap if these proposals go ahead. I will explain to the Education Secretary exactly why that is; he can read this in briefing the Children’s Society has provided. Some 280,000 families are affected, containing between them more than 700,000 children.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. The whole idea about UC was that it was supposed to get rid of cliff edges and benefit traps, but instead it is introducing a benefit trap far bigger and far worse than anything in the old benefit system. This is completely scuppering the whole purpose of UC. If it is true, as the Secretary of State told us, that jobcentre coaches are going to say to people, “No, don’t take on extra work. Don’t get a pay rise. Don’t go for more hours because if you do, you will end up worse off,” how are people supposed to progress?”
“The number of Government-funded homes built for social rent fell to 199 in the past six months—the lowest number since records have been kept. Is it not now clear that there is an urgent need for a major Government-funded programme of social housing?”
“2. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on extending the role of the Groceries Code Adjudicator.”
“I am the unpaid chair of the trustees of the Fairtrade organisation Traidcraft. There were high hopes across the Chamber of a stronger Groceries Code Adjudicator to protect suppliers from unfair practices, such as last-minute cancellations of orders and unexplained deductions from invoices. Ministers started consulting, I think, 18 months ago on possible changes. The farming Command Paper last month promised fairness in the supply chain, but hopes were dashed with the announcement last month that there would be no change to the adjudicator’s remit. Why are Ministers failing to take action?”
“The reality, unfortunately, is that the hard Brexit that the Prime Minister is now pursuing will lead inexorably and inevitably to a hard border in Northern Ireland. Between Canada and the United States, there are border checks of exactly the kind that she rightly says—unlike the Foreign Secretary—that she does not want in Northern Ireland. Will she confirm that she cannot name a single example anywhere in the world of an international border with no customs union and no border checks? It is a fantasy.”
“As the Secretary of State is describing, the Bill puts into UK law the EU’s general data protection regulation, which is the right thing to do. I am confident that he would agree that we need to ensure that our data protection rules stay in line with the EU regulation as things develop. Does it trouble him that we will have less influence over the future content of the EU’s rules once we have left it?”
“In fact—the Secretary of State is absolutely right about this—it would be a disaster for the UK to deviate from EU data protection regulation, because if the EU were to judge our data protection rules to be inadequate, a large chunk of the UK economy would immediately be without any lawful basis. That could affect exactly the kind of innovative company to which my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge drew attention—a games company with players all over Europe who, as a part of playing the game, need to be able to send personal data between their country and the European Union.”
“However, in recent months, the Foreign Secretary and the International Trade Secretary have suggested from time to time that it would be a good thing if the UK could deviate from EU rules on data protection. Last July, for example, the International Trade Secretary said in the United States—I am quoting from a report in the Financial Times —that the UK was more in line with US calls for information to be allowed to flow freely across borders while Germany and other EU countries insist on localisation. He was getting a bit confused about two different things, but he is clearly suggesting in that remark, as in others, that it could be a good thing for the UK to deviate from EU data protection rules.”
“Lord Stevenson tabled an amendment in the other place that said: “The protection of personal data may not be lawfully restricted or limited unless such restrictions and limitations are consistent with the principle of proportionality.” That is an important additional protection that ought to be in the Bill. I hope that we will be able to debate that amendment in Committee. There is some confusion in the Government about all this. The Secretary of State set out how important it is that we keep our UK data regulation aligned with the regulation in the European Union because of the importance to the UK economy of personal data transfers between the UK and the EU. He is absolutely right about that.”
“Ministers have made some changes to the Bill during its passage through the other place since we last discussed it in this Chamber on 12 October. In that debate, I and others made the point that my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Tom Watson) made earlier—that leaving article 8 of the European charter of fundamental rights outside UK law poses a serious threat to our achieving a data adequacy determination from the European Commission in future. I therefore welcome the addition of what is now clause 2, which partly addresses that. However, I do not think it goes far enough, so I will be supporting my hon. Friend’s proposal that article 8 should be added to our statute book.”
“Like my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), who gave an excellent speech a few minutes ago, I will focus my remarks on the data protection aspects of the Bill. The Minister will have seen the press report this morning on research carried out by the Federation of Small Businesses showing that fewer than one in 10 small businesses is fully prepared for the obligations that this legislation imposes on them, and just under one in five has not yet heard of the GDPR. These obligations all take effect at the end of May—in less than three months’ time—so whatever the merits of this Bill, there is clearly a huge amount of work to be done in drawing the attention of those affected to what it means.”
“Friends, and I very much welcome what the Prime Minister said about all this on Friday. However, there is clearly a problem in the Cabinet. I gather that after sending that letter, techUK received a reassuring response from the Department, and then a few days later a non-executive director at the Department for International Trade was quoted as saying, “Complying with EU standards on data is not the only solution.” But the truth is that for a large part of the UK economy, it is the only solution. We need to be absolutely clear about this. I am delighted that the Secretary of State is clear about it. Of course, that is why he is bringing this Bill before us and why he has altered it in line with what a number of us said in October.”
“I am grateful to the Secretary of State, and I welcome that commitment on the part of the Prime Minister. The problem is, however, that the International Trade Secretary and the Foreign Secretary have been saying different. That led to techUK, the industry body, writing to the International Trade Secretary last month to highlight the dangers. This was reported by that reliable publication, The Daily Telegraph , on 19 February, with the headline: “Tech industry warns Ministers not to drop EU security laws”. The report began: “The British tech industry has issued a stark warning to leading Brexiteer ministers that diverging from EU data protection standards after Brexit will ‘undermine’ the UK’s status as Europe’s leading tech hub.” The Secretary of State is absolutely right not to have gone down the same road as his right hon.”
“I am very keen to hear the Minister’s response to those concerns in particular.”
“I would very much welcome the Minister telling us—my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge made this point as well—how, in future, we are going to make adequacy determinations about other countries’ data protection laws. Are we going to adopt the EU list and say that those 12 countries are adequate and others are not, or are we going to have our own processes? How is it going to be done? I echo the concerns expressed by a number of Members about the threats to our future data adequacy determination that come from the immigration exemption and the national security exemption. Those were not well defended by Ministers in the debates in the other place, and the justification for them is not clear. As others have said, they leave us open to criticisms of our data protection regulations that could threaten our future adequacy determinations.”
“It will be asserted that because of our economic interests, in this case, we should comply with rules drawn up by the European Union—in this case, the general data protection regulation—but we will no longer have a vote about what those rules should be. We will become a rule-taker. I welcome the commitment that the Prime Minister has made to a place for the UK’s Information Commissioner on the European data protection board. That will be helpful. It means that we will at least get a voice in these discussions when the rules are being drawn up—but we will not get a vote. We will be less influential in EU data protection laws than we have been as members of the European Union. We need to recognise that our influence, including over laws that we are going to have to implement ourselves, will be less in future than it has been up to now.”
“I am glad that the Secretary of State has been lobbied in support of his own position, but he needs to watch his back against Ministers who lack the clarity that he has expressed—particularly the International Trade Secretary and the Foreign Secretary, who continue to say that there is merit in divergence. There is no merit in divergence at all. Significant numbers of tech start-ups are already going to Berlin rather than basing themselves in the UK because of the uncertainty about this issue. The more uncertainty there is, fanned by some members of the Cabinet, the greater the economic damage to the UK. This is a very clear example of the situation we are going to find ourselves in more and more when we have left the European Union.”
“May I take it from what my right hon. Friend says that the official Opposition’s position is that we will support the retention of the amendments agreed in the other place?”
“Eighty per cent. of the road freight to and from the UK goes through Dover. There is surely no realistic chance of all those lorries being checked from March next year. Is not the reality that, if we leave the EU without a deal, utter chaos on the road network within miles of Dover is completely unavoidable?”
“Can the Minister confirm that cameras count as infrastructure? Can he point us to an example anywhere in the world of an international border with no customs union and no border infrastructure? Can he provide one example, from anywhere?”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this subject and for the case that she is making. She has mentioned universal credit. Does she agree with me that the roll-out of universal credit to a number of the constituencies that she listed earlier will make some of those families’ problems significantly worse over the next few months?”
“T6. The Foreign Secretary mentioned his visit to Bangladesh and Burma, and his meetings with the Rohingya. We hold the pen at the UN on this issue. Will the British Government bring forward a resolution referring Myanmar to the International Criminal Court, given what happened?”
“2. What discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on publishing the Government’s assessment of the effect on the public purse of a reduction in the maximum fixed-odds betting stake.”
“Vile machines are cynically clustered by shameless and irresponsible conglomerates in the poorest communities, where they destroy hard-working families. They are a magnet for crime, and they launder the proceeds of crime. Tawdry and soulless high street outlets drive decent shops away and repel family shoppers. Will the Secretary of State now call time on this racket, with its £1.5 billion a year welfare burden, and cut the maximum stake to £2?”
“There is nothing in the legacy system under which someone earning a few hours of extra work will end up hundreds of pounds worse off because they have lost their free school meals.”
“I, too, want to refer to the work incentive, because improving it was supposed to be the fundamental advantage of universal credit. That was set out fully and ably by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) from 2010 onwards. For example, the document “21st Century Welfare”, which was published in July 2010, states in chapter 2 that “someone at the National Minimum Wage would be less than £7 per week better off if they worked 16 extra hours…A system that produces this result cannot be right.” We all agreed with the right hon. Gentleman about that, yet the universal credit system, which is supposed to remove all these problems, will introduce a benefit trap far worse than anything in the legacy system.”
“The difficulty is that universal credit was never seen as a whole-of-Government initiative. When the Government that many now on the Opposition Benches supported introduced tax credits, it was a whole-of-Government initiative. Gordon Brown made sure of that. Under this Government, universal credit is a matter for the DWP, so the Minister present no doubt feels that it is not for him to worry about work incentives in the social security system. However, he should be worried about this issue, and I hope he will change his policy.”
“I do not think I can, given the time limit, but I want to comment on the point that the hon. Gentleman made in his speech. He suggested that the answer could be an electronic card system and the contribution to school meals could be tapered away with the universal credit taper. I made that proposal in the Welfare Reform Bill Committee on 13 June 2011, when I moved new clause 3. I was making exactly the point that a fixed-income threshold for entitlement to free school meals is disastrous for work incentives. There is some merit in his suggestion that that would be a long-term solution, but I suggested it seven years ago, which I am afraid is a reflection of the failure of Ministers. Seven years on, they have not come up with a solution to this very serious problem.”
“At the weekend, NHS England, as my colleagues have pointed out, gave up on the key A&E waiting time target. Does the Minister agree that it is very important that when people go to A&E they do not have to wait longer than four hours, as more than 2.5 million did last year? Whose responsibility is this delivery failure?”
“Has the Minister had any discussions with colleagues in the Department for Education about their proposals for the eligibility of universal credit claimants to free school meals? If the current proposal were to go ahead, it would introduce a huge new benefit trap into the system, far worse than anything in the old system. Universal credit was supposed to remove such traps, not create new ones.”
“The European Union has clearly and firmly set out its views on the options for these negotiations. Ministers so far have signally failed to provide any coherent response because they cannot agree among one another, and the Minister’s answers today underline that—whether the answer is regulatory equivalence or something different, we just do not know. How long will it be before the British Government have a coherent position to set out in these negotiations?”
“The Minister has told the House that all 1.6 million existing claimants will have their cases reviewed. I am grateful to her for adding that those who had zero points, and therefore did not get PIP, will also be included in the review. Will she confirm that the 180,000 people who used to be on disability living allowance and are no longer receiving benefit will be included? In total, on top of the 1.6 million, how many cases does she expect to review?”
“The jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in the UK will be ended from March 2019 under the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, but the Prime Minister has made it clear that the ECJ’s jurisdiction will continue into the two-year implementation period to follow. Can the Minister therefore confirm that the implementation and withdrawal Bill, which will come forward in due course, will re-impose the jurisdiction of the ECJ on the UK?”
“I welcome what the Minister is proposing. Could he tell the Committee whether the change affects civilian personnel of the military, for example civilian staff working at a barracks or a military base, or does it affect only uniformed personnel?”
“It is now absolutely clear that the target of 3 million apprenticeship starts by 2020 will be missed. FE Week published an informative graph in November, showing that achievements towards that target were behind target up to a year ago, and then, almost a year ago when the levy was introduced, they went massively off-target. There is really no prospect now of the ground being made up. It would be very good to hear from the Minister what plans there are to try to get the apprenticeships programme back on track. The call for devolution, which is across the board now, of powers on skills should be not just heeded—the Government have recognised that—but delivered. I hope we shall hear from the Minister what steps will be taken to do that.”
“It suggests that, even though £2.6 billion is being collected through the apprenticeship levy, the Government might actually end up spending less on apprenticeships this year than last year, because the cuts in funding for the apprenticeship programme from taxation have been greater than the extra amount going in through the apprenticeship levy. The right hon. Member for Witham rightly drew attention, in a very courteous way, to some of the flaws in the design of the levy. Those flaws are serious. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green suggested, it would be great if the Minister would tell us that there will be some sort of review of how the levy is going. I have not heard any suggestion of that yet, but I do think a review is urgently needed.”
“I pay tribute to the Learning Revolution Trust, a charity that aims to reduce the financial barriers to education faced by many people today in east London. It typically provides modest financial support to people, perhaps midway through a course, for example to help with childcare costs, and has helped more than 300 young people since it was established in 2012. It has made an important contribution. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green and the right hon. Member for Witham both mentioned apprenticeships, which are key. It seems to me, however, that the programme has been botched in the past year or two. The Association of Colleges has reported, based on data from 91 further education colleges last November, that the number of apprentices had fallen 39% compared with the previous year.”
“Refugee Action says that about half of ESOL providers report waiting lists of six months or more. I hope that we can recognise the importance of ESOL and do something to address the current lack of funding. I pay tribute to the work in my borough, Newham, of ESOL Exchange, which will mark its 10th anniversary next month. It is a network of people and organisations working together to improve ESOL in Newham, managed by the Aston-Mansfield Community Involvement Unit. It provides a web-based directory of formal and informal ESOL provision of all kinds across our borough, in order to make it as accessible as possible. Helping people in east London speak English proficiently is a very important part of the skills challenge.”
“It is widely recognised that the ability to speak English is key to integration and community cohesion, and yet funding for it in London has been dramatically cut. The joint briefing for this debate from London Councils and the Greater London Authority makes the point: “London’s population has grown from 7.4 million in 2005 to 8.9 million in 2017, but funding for English for Speakers of Other Languages has reduced in real terms by 60% since 2009.” My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden), who will be winding up for the Opposition in this debate, pointed out last October, in a parliamentary briefing on delivering skills for London organised by the Learning Revolution Trust—a charity linked with Newham College in my constituency—that annual ESOL funding had been cut from £203 million in 2010 to £90 million.”
“In October, the Mayor of London published research showing that east London is the fastest-growing area of the capital. Some 110,000 additional jobs have been created in the six Olympic boroughs since 2012—three times the number predicted in 2013. I very much agree with what the Mayor said in October: “Businesses, universities and cultural institutions are flocking here and the centre of gravity in London is moving east.” That trend in our part of London further highlights the importance of the skills challenge. The report published by the all-party parliamentary group for London highlights a number of issues specific to the capital, such as, “a much higher demand for English for Speakers of Other Languages”. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green mentioned that as one of the concerns, and I very much agree with her on that.”
“Furthermore, in the background to all of that is the perennial UK challenge on productivity. UK productivity fell from 9% below the OECD average in 2007 to 18% below it in 2015. We have to overcome that long-term challenge. The report is also absolutely right to highlight, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green did in her opening speech, that a drop in European Union migration will have a disproportionate impact on London, because so many workers in London are from other parts of the European Union. Lots of London’s key sectors have big EU-born workforces, and Brexit is bound to make the problems of skills shortages worse and increase the importance of achieving solutions. Those challenges are particularly acute in east London—the part of London that I represent.”
“Member for Witham mentioned the Essex Chambers of Commerce and Industry. The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry explicitly endorses the recommendation in the all-party parliamentary group’s report to devolve all 16-to-18 provision to London, and to give the capital greater control over policy and commissioning. Life is difficult for many in London today. Employment is high, which is a very good thing, but jobs are often insecure and uncertain. Housing costs are high and rising quite fast, and wages are not keeping pace. More and more people are in the position characterised by the Prime Minister as “just about managing.” Some forecasters currently estimate that 3 million jobs could be lost to automation in the next generation. Automation is a huge driver of the need for reskilling.”
“Friend the Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) and the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) on bringing it forward. I welcome the sense of urgency that the report conveys about what it describes, absolutely rightly, as “an enormous skills challenge” in London. There is a striking degree of agreement in London about what needs to be done. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green set out a number of priorities. The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in its most recent quarterly survey, for the third quarter of 2017, found that 60% of businesses in London that tried to recruit encountered difficulty finding people with the right skills. That is the highest—that is to say, the worst—proportion since it started collecting those figures four years ago. The right hon.”
“Welcome to the Chair, Mr Paisley. The Government have said that they want skills devolution, and the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) has supported that aim. Indeed, I think George Osborne announced that skills would be devolved to a number of mayoral combined authorities, but progress has been woefully slow, so I very much welcome the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) has secured today’s debate. There are still lots of operational details about how that devolution will be achieved. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to give us some detail about when devolution will happen in London and the other mayoral combined authorities, because the need is now pressing. I welcome the report from the all-party parliamentary group for London, and congratulate my hon.”
“This was an ill-advised attempt to reduce the amount of benefit payable to people with mental health problems, and I am glad that it has been abandoned. Will the Secretary of State take steps to ensure that, in future, her Department complies with its obligations under the Equality Act 2010?”