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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“At the start of his speech yesterday the Chancellor drew attention, naturally enough, to the fall in unemployment announced yesterday morning. That is unequivocally good news, but it has been a very long time coming. We were told after the general election that the new Government’s policies would lead to steady growth and falling unemployment. In fact, for three years there was hardly any growth, unemployment remained high, and only now are we finally starting to see unemployment coming down. That three-year delay has meant that the promise to eliminate the deficit within this Parliament will not be delivered either, and an important part of the legacy of that three-year failure will be in the labour market.”
“On Wednesday evening, at the invitation of Colin Crooks, the social entrepreneur in residence at the London borough of Lambeth, I attended a reception at Brixton East for a couple of dozen start-up enterprises in Lambeth that were being mentored, with support provided by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, by Tree Shepherd, the organisation that Colin leads. It was a great evening with a tremendous buzz as imaginative and creative people presented their products, food, crafts and fashion. There are now opportunities for people to take the risk of starting up new enterprises. The Government must get behind them and support them particularly at the key moment when they take on their first employee. That is one of the key things that our guarantee will do, and I urge the Secretary of State to support it.”
“The twelfth was not kept on by that company but has a job in a different company not far away. That is the kind of success that we can deliver with the approach that we are describing. We want to see the job guarantee delivering right across the country. What a contrast that is to the wage subsidies under the Government’s youth contract, which has been a complete damp squib. We are about 60% of the way through the three-year programme, and only 7% of the budget has been taken up. More than 900,000 young people—nearly 20% of young people—are still out of work. We must do a great deal better than that.”
“It recruited 12 young people under the jobs growth Wales programme, which works on the basis that I have described. The Secretary of State commented in the House a few weeks ago on the fact that labour market performance was better in Wales compared with the rest of the UK. He is right, and jobs growth Wales is an important part of the reason for that. The company that my hon. Friend and I visited told us that it would never have been able to take the risk of taking on those 12 young people had it not been for the support of jobs growth Wales. That is why the Federation of Small Businesses in Wales is a champion of the programme. The subsidy for those 12 young people is long since finished, and they have been in their jobs for a year or so. Of the 12 young people who were taken on, 11 are now in permanent jobs with that company.”
“The proposition is for every young person who has been out of work for more than a year, and every older unemployed person who has been out of work for more than two years, to be guaranteed the offer of a choice of jobs. In some cases, a training place will be one of those offers. The jobs will consist of at least 25 hours a week for at least six months, and will pay at least the national minimum wage. The way in which we will deliver the guarantee, as in the future jobs fund before the election, is that the Government will pay the wages. A fortnight ago, the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and I visited a software company in Cardiff, which employs 150 people. The company is growing fast and things are going well.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is huge enthusiasm for getting back into work in our area and across the country. It is absolutely clear that the answer to long-term unemployment is not the Work programme. The Chancellor rightly identified in his spending review statement last summer that it falls into the category of “underperforming programmes” in the Department for Work and Pensions. Figures today show that the Work programme’s performance has got worse. I want to talk about the compulsory jobs guarantee, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) has referred to and which he and the leader of our party set out at the beginning of last week.”
“The cost of legal aid came in at £56 million less than was budgeted last year, and research commissioned by the Law Society from Oxford Economics argues that falling crime will reduce the legal aid bill by £80 million by 2018-19. What assessment has the Minister made of the argument that the spending cuts will be delivered without the scale of service reductions he is currently proposing?”
“Will the Leader of the House answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) about the Work programme evaluation report, whose existence was revealed yesterday by “Channel 4 News”? The report apparently points out that people who are out of work on health grounds are getting a particularly raw deal. When will it be published?”
“Will the Chief Secretary confirm that the number of people on jobseeker’s allowance for more than two years has quadrupled since the Government came into office? Will he accept that we have a serious long-term unemployment problem that requires Government action, beyond what is happening at the moment, to tackle it?”
“The RPI last September was 3.2%, whereas the pension uprating delivered by this order is 2.7%. So in RPI terms, this is quite a big cut of 0.5%—a full half percentage point—in the value of the state pension, which is a bigger real-terms cut than last year. If the basic state pension had been uprated in line with RPI since 2010, the weekly rate for a single person would be more than a pound higher than the figure we are debating today, at £114.21.”
“Clearly, with so few people in receipt of universal credit, he is not the Minister responsible for in-work benefits—that responsibility remains with the Treasury—but I wonder whether he could explain how the parliamentary process dealing with those tax credits is to be handled. This is the fourth year since the announcement of the triple lock for the basic state pension. In rhetorical terms the triple lock has, no doubt, been successful, but, unfortunately, the reality has been rather different, because, once again, the increase in the state pension is less this year than it would have been if the uprating method previously used was still in place. In RPI terms, this is a real-terms cut for the third year in a row in the value of the basic state pension.”
“I thank the Minister for his explanation and confirm that I do not intend to express concerns about the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2014. However, I do wish to make some comments about the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2014. As he has said, this is a rather thinner debate than the corresponding ones he and I have enjoyed in previous years, because a big chunk of what we have debated previously is now covered by the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Act 2013, which imposed a 1% uprating this year and next, and so is outside the scope of these orders. One thing I have not entirely understood—the Minister touched on this and I would be grateful if he explained it—is how the corresponding order for tax credits will be dealt with. Some elements of tax credits uprating are not covered by the 1% constraint.”
“So it is important in this debate to put on the record the extent to which the triple lock has delivered less than the long-established formula that was in place until the general election. It is worth examining the history of the triple lock. In its first year, it was announced but not actually implemented, because it would have delivered a very small increase. So at its first outing, it failed.”
“I will come on to deal with that. The point I wish to make is that the triple lock is frequently presented to us, as the Minister did again today, as being extraordinarily generous to pensioners. It is presented as some great superlative, whereas in fact it has delivered a lower uprating than the previous formula—the one in place before the last election—in every one of the three years when it has been used, and in the first year it was due to be used it would have delivered such a low uprating that the Minister chose to override it. He was sensible to do so, but if he had used the triple lock in that first year, the gap between his uprating and the value of the basic state pension under the old method would now be almost £3 per week.”
“I think the hon. Gentleman is referring to the change made by Mrs Thatcher when she was Prime Minister, and he makes an entirely fair point. However, the point I am putting to him is that he and his party, particularly the Minister, frequently present the triple lock to us as somehow being extraordinarily generous, whereas in practice it has provided less than the formula he has just criticised—the one introduced by the former Conservative Prime Minister. If that formula had continued after the 2010 general election, the state pension amount we would be debating today would be more than £1 a week more than the figure in this order.”
“I certainly hope that that is the case, but in the short run, in the period since the general election, we are seeing a lower value for the basic state pension than if Mrs Thatcher’s formula had stayed in place. That point is not widely understood. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman understands it, but I want to put it on the record so that people are aware of the fact that the method that is currently in place has in fact delivered a lower value for the basic state pension than if Mrs Thatcher’s formula had continued to be used.”
“If the arrangements in place before the last election had been maintained, the increases would have been at RPI. If they had been at RPI, we would be debating today a higher value for the basic state pension than the one in the order in front of us.”
“Thanks to the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Act 2013, most working age benefits were capped at 1%, with provisions for them also to be capped at 1% for the following two years, and so are outside the scope of this order. As we have said in previous years, there would have been a reasonable case for the Government to make a temporary change to the methodology, but unfortunately they went further.”
“In 2011, a contributory deal, understood and signed up to by pensioners, was broken. That was compounded last year, and the Government want to do it again this year. On the other side of the coin, it is worth noting that RPI will continue to be used for the uprating of a great many other things. The Minister has correctly quoted my comments on that in the past. There could well have been a case to uprate by CPI as a deficit reducing measure for a period. However, we do not accept that Ministers should have tied themselves to CPI indefinitely, and that remains our view. As announced in 2010, the Government have also made a permanent switch to CPI uprating.”
“In its second year, it was implemented and delivered an increase in line with CPI, along with working age benefits. Last year, it was applied again and, for the first time, it delivered something better than CPI, but that was only by 0.3 percentage points. This year, the Government propose to uprate the basic state pension by CPI, which, as of September last year, was 2.7%. That is only a 0.2 percentage point increase on the absolute bare minimum that would be possible under the triple lock. Had the previous uprating RPI mechanism been in place, there would have been a larger pension increase this year, and in the last two years, than has been delivered. It was in 2011 that the Government first uprated pensions by CPI rather than RPI. In the debate then I pointed out that this was a direct hit on the income of pensioners, and it still is.”
“The hon. Lady makes an important point. I hope she will support Labour’s energy price freeze, which will have an important benefit for people on low incomes. She is also right to draw attention to the particular difficulties of pensioners on low incomes. It is for that reason that pension credit is so important. Pension credit, which is in the order in front of us—I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Gregg McClymont) will say more about that when he responds to the debate later—is being uprated at a significantly lower rate in percentage terms than the basic state pension. I was talking about the history of the triple lock. In the first year, it was overridden, so it failed.”
“Sadly, I am not in the happy position that the Minister describes. I hope that I will be before very long, in which case I will gladly give him the answer that he seeks. However, I am not in that position today.”
“Goodness knows how many hundreds of millions of pounds that is going to end up costing. It is clear that the next Government will have a major job on their hands to salvage universal credit after May next year if, as all of us must hope, it can be salvaged.”
“Unfortunately I have been proved right. Indeed, the position is now a good deal worse than I feared when I wrote to the Secretary of State in November 2010. There is now a real danger that the entire project could collapse. As I pointed out at the time, the time scale for the IT was always unachievable. That goes back to the July 2010 Green Paper, which included the absurd claim that the IT for universal credit would not amount to a major IT system. Replacing the whole of the benefit information technology can hardly amount to anything other than a major IT system. Ministers have failed to deliver any IT system. It now appears that, while they continue to develop late the IT system they started out with, they are also going to develop a second universal credit IT system, in the hope that they can get it right second time around.”
“The answer, as far as one can make sense of all this, is that the Government use CPI when it is useful to have a small number and RPI when they want a big number. That appears to be the principle that has been adopted. The result is that pensioners will see their state pension increased in line with CPI, but their train fares by RPI. Part 7 of the order in front of us relates to universal credit. As the House well knows, this is becoming an appalling fiasco. The Secretary of State told us yesterday that he expected 6,000 people to be in receipt of universal credit during the current pathfinder. It was not clear by what date he expected that figure to be achieved. Will the Minister let us know? He will recall that I have been warning since November 2010 that the time scale announced by Ministers for universal credit was unachievable.”
“I can well understand why the hon. Gentleman wants to know the answer to that question. If, as we have heard, he and his party are to be involved in the next Government, it will be in coalition with a party other than the one that they are in coalition with at the moment. I am afraid that he will have to be a little patient to get an answer to his question. None the less, I well understand why he wants to know the answer. The Chancellor proudly told us in his autumn statement last year that the increase formula for regulated train fares was changing from RPI plus 1% to RPI plus 0%, which means that regulated rail fares would increase by no more than July 2013’s RPI of 3.1% . What is not clear is why the Government apply RPI in that case and CPI in this.”
“The increase of the state pension in line with the triple lock is worth having—I put it no stronger than that—but the Government have chosen to uprate state benefits and pensions permanently in a way that is meaner than the method used before. For that reason, we are unable to support the Government in the Lobby on the orders today.”
“There is growing dismay in the country about the impact of the Government’s changes on growing numbers of people—with an extraordinary 750,000 people forced to go to food banks last year because they were unable to afford enough food for themselves and their families. The Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster expressed it powerfully last week when he said: “Something is going seriously wrong when, in a country as affluent as ours people are left in that destitute situation and depend solely on the handouts of the charity of food banks”. He is surely right. Something is going very badly wrong indeed, and it needs to be put right.”
“It certainly leaves an operational vacuum, apparently pending the appointment of a new provider. At this stage there is no indication of when such an appointment might be made. In the circumstances, it is surprising that the Minister did not take the opportunity to inform the House of the situation yesterday, when there was an extensive discussion on the matter and a number of questions were asked about the process for replacing Atos and the operation of the work capability assessment in the meantime. It appears that the operation has been significantly scaled back. Given that ESA is part of the order before us, I wonder whether the Minister can take this opportunity to provide us with the explanation that we were not provided with yesterday.”
“The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), frankly acknowledged in oral questions yesterday pressures and capacity problems at Atos and indicated that negotiations were taking place to find an alternative provider, but he made no mention of the suspension of repeat assessments in the meantime, which appears to have been introduced. The memo obtained by Benefits and Work suggests that DWP has deliberately chosen not to inform Members of the House or claimants about this change. Why has that been done? Can the Minister provide reassurances to the public about the scale of the difficulties—yet another emerging mess in his Department? The decision by Ministers to take this action will confirm widespread scepticism about whether the system is fit for purpose.”
“The hon. Gentleman correctly quotes the Secretary of State. He told us for a long time that universal credit was on track, then latterly he started to say that it was “essentially on track”. So one can be forgiven for not being entirely reassured. I wonder whether the Minister can help us on another matter that has just come to light in connection with part 6 of the order on employment and support allowance. A freedom of information request by the advice service Benefits and Work revealed yesterday that the Department for Work and Pensions had issued an internal memo to staff on 20 January advising that, owing to a growing backlog at the assessment company Atos, all current ESA claimants would be left on the benefit without further medical checks until another company could be found to carry out repeat work capability assessments.”
“What is the Minister’s response to last week’s comments by the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster about the significant number of people who find themselves in destitution as a result of the changes that have been made?”
“Surely the Minister accepts that comments such as those made by the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and in last week’s letter signed by 27 bishops are based on actual experience of what is happening in communities. Surely he cannot maintain, as he appeared to do, that nothing has changed and that things are carrying on as they were before—clearly that is not true.”
“The Trussell Trust has been exposing the real impact of Ministers’ policies, so out of pique they have refused to meet the trust’s representatives since last summer. Now that they have been overruled by the Prime Minister, who met trust representatives last week, will DWP Ministers at last step up to their responsibilities? Was not the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster absolutely right when he said last week that “there shouldn’t be people living with nothing, in destitution, in a country which is as prosperous as this”?”
“Q11. With economic growth delayed for three years after the election, we have been left— [ Interruption. ] We have been left with more young people out of work long term than at any time for 20 years. Surely we must do more so that we do not waste the potential of a generation.”
“It is not an historic concern. The number of people who are working part time because they cannot find full-time work is still more than 1.4 million. It has never been that high before. It is a current problem, which the Secretary of State should be concerned about.”
“This is not a throwaway reference. I wonder whether the Secretary of State has seen the interview with Professor Löfstedt, whom he mentioned earlier. In that interview, which was published last month, the professor mentioned some of the steps the Government have taken on, for example, civil liability. He said: “It’s very unfortunate; it’s more or less ideology. I have been trying to promote evidence based policy making and this does not help”. That is what Professor Löfstedt is now saying about what the Government are doing.”
“After a long delay, jobs are finally being created, but the priority now is to bring back into the labour market those who have been locked out of it for much too long. That is the damaging legacy of three years without growth, and it needs tackling urgently, otherwise we will face a whole generation of lost economic potential.”
“We have had an excellent debate. When the current Government were elected, we were promised that new policies would lead to “steady growth and falling unemployment”. Unfortunately, however, they did not. For three years, there was hardly any growth and unemployment stayed high. Despite all the benefit cuts, over this Parliament the Government will spend £15 billion more on social security and tax credits than they said they would just after the election. As a result, more young people have been out of work for over a year than at any time for 20 years. We urgently need to bring those young people, at the start of what should be their working lives, back into the labour market. In addition, more over-25s have been out of work for over two years than at any time since 1997.”
“Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown) argued for “make work pay” contracts, whereby firms signing up to the living wage under our proposal in the first year of the next Parliament would get a tax rebate in that year of up to £1,000 for every low-paid worker who gets a pay rise, the Exchequer cost being entirely covered by increased tax and national insurance revenue. Step by step, we are setting out how we will deal with the problems this Government’s policies will leave behind— growing insecurity and a big squeeze on family incomes in the middle and elsewhere. What we are proposing is practical, effective action to tackle job insecurity, make workplaces safer, improve pay, particularly for the low paid, and make the cost of living more manageable. We want to build a one nation economy, and the sooner the better.”
“The Secretary of State said that enforcement had been sorted out, but where is the evidence? Since 2010, Ministers have announced three times that they will name and shame firms that flout the national minimum wage, but so far nobody has been named or shamed. We need much more effective enforcement, including by giving powers to local authorities. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) highlighted the explosion in zero-hours contracts. The Resolution Foundation has found that average pay on them is 40% less than on regular contracts. My hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan) gave us a graphic example from his constituency of the reality of being on such a contract. We need a serious effort from Government to promote the living wage. My hon.”
“The qualification period for protection against unfair dismissal has been doubled, from one year to two, and fees introduced for employment tribunals. The Government went so far as to consult on the proposal for no-fault dismissal made by Mr Adrian Beecroft in his infamous report. If that had been implemented, it would have allowed employers to fire people at will. As my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) pointed out at the start of the debate, the minimum wage has fallen by 5% in real terms since the election. The Chancellor has hinted that he plans to do something about that for next year—better late than never; let us hope he delivers—but he should look at enforcement as well. An estimated 300,000 people are paid less than the minimum wage, but there have been just two prosecutions in four years.”
“I take the Secretary of State’s point—he is not responsible for this—but in an interview last month Professor Löfstedt described what is happening as ideology in place of evidence-based policy, and safety at work is at risk as a result. I want to highlight in particular the Government’s removal of civil liability for employers breaching health and safety law in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, which Professor Löfstedt picked out in his report one year afterwards. Given all this, there is now growing concern that health and safety is being put at risk. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) highlighted employment rights and the case of INEOS in his constituency.”
“669W.] That is as a consequence of our legislation. The Secretary of State reminded us that Ministers commissioned Professor Ragnar Löfstedt of King’s College London to review health and safety legislation. Some people think it should be dramatically cut back, but not the Secretary of State, and not Professor Löfstedt either. He wrote: “I have concluded that, in general, there is no case for radically altering current health and safety legislation…There is a view across the board that the existing regulatory requirements are broadly right”. Ministers said in response that they supported the recommendations of the review, but what they are doing is different. They are trying to shift the balance, even though they have been unable to find evidence to support them.”
“Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams) was right to highlight the case of job insecurity at a power plant in his constituency. That kind of problem is widespread. Our motion refers to health and safety changes. I had an exchange with the Secretary of State about this earlier, but I want to make a bit more of the point. This year marks the 40th anniversary of Labour’s Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974. The disability benefits Minister, the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), rightly told me in a written answer last month: “Workplace health and safety has made an important contribution to vastly reducing the numbers of people killed, injured or made unwell by their work in the last 40 years.” —[ Official Report , 30 January 2014; Vol. 574, c.”
“Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) reminded us that the House of Commons Library calculated that the average household was more than £1,600 worse off than at the time of the last election. The hon. Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), whom I am glad is back in the Chamber, made a thoughtful speech essentially arguing that there was nothing new about these problems. He should look at the quarterly Asda “Mumdex” briefing, which I think has been sent to all of us: “Last year, we saw Mums cutting back on luxuries like holidays, gadgets and meals out. Now families are struggling to afford basics like heating and petrol.” The intensity of the problem is new. YouGov found last year that the number of people feeling insecure at work had almost doubled since the election—6.5 million then, 12 million now—and the hon.”
“For the first time, the majority of people living in poverty are in households where somebody is in work, as was highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies). A staggering number of people in work are resorting to food banks, in Wales and elsewhere, so I welcome the Prime Minister’s agreement to meet representatives from the Trussell Trust, which co-ordinates food banks, next week, overruling the childish refusal to do so by DWP Ministers over the last several months. Month after month, it is the same. Last month, inflation was more than 2% and pay rises were below 1%. That is what people are experiencing. For the first time—we had an exchange about this earlier—over 1.4 million people are working part-time because they cannot find a full-time job. My hon.”
“What I am worried about is the apparent collapse of careers advice in schools, with more and more employers saying to us that young people are not getting the advice they need to plan for future employment. I am extremely worried about that. Despite this legacy, our proposed job guarantee will deliver, unlike the Work programme, which was rightly described by the Chancellor in last summer’s spending review statement as “underperforming”, and the Youth Contract, whose wage incentives have proved a hopeless damp squib. The Secretary of State was right at the outset of the debate to commend the record on employment support in Wales, where the Jobs Growth Wales programme, reflecting our job guarantee, has done a great deal better. This debate has focused on those in work.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing a debate on this very important issue. She has talked about what college principals are saying. Let me quote what the principal of Newham sixth-form college has said, describing those affected: “These are ambitious and aspirational students who have stuck with their commitment to education. They are doing the right thing…How were they to know that the system would decide that they don’t deserve to be funded for 3 years of further education at the same rate as those students who only need 2 years?” Is not it a very arbitrary and damaging cut that has been introduced?”
“I would like to associate myself with the condolences that the Prime Minister expressed on behalf of the whole House. The Trussell Trust co-ordinates the fast-growing network, now numbering some 400, of church-based food banks, which between them provided food for half a million people, just between April and December last year. Will the Prime Minister be willing to meet representatives of the Trussell Trust to discuss the big challenges with which they are grappling?”