Tag: Stephen Timms

  • Stephen Timms – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    Stephen Timms – 2023 Speech on the Budget

    The speech made by Sir Stephen Timms, the Labour MP for East Ham, in the House of Commons on 16 March 2023.

    Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I apologise for my late arrival in the debate.

    It is striking how hard it is for Conservative Chancellors to resist the temptation to hand out big tax cuts to the wealthiest while raising tax for ordinary people. We can sympathise with the Chancellor in that he meets many such people—many people among the 1% wealthiest pension savers in the country—who are very courteous and very nice to him over convivial dinners, and they explain to him their frustrations with the Government’s pensions tax policy. These are good eggs, and who could possibly begrudge them a £1.2 billion tax cut? But the reality is that pension tax relief is already massively skewed in favour of the best-off, and the Chancellor, when times are hard, has decided to give another billion to the wealthiest in pension tax relief.

    I do welcome the adoption of the Select Committee recommendations on support in universal credit for the costs of childcare, which was announced yesterday. As the Secretary of State explained, allowing the costs to be paid up front from universal credit and lifting the cap—absurdly, it had not been raised since 2005—will remove very important barriers to work, including a barrier to those who are working part-time from working full-time.

    There is much to welcome in the health and disability White Paper, which says that the system will be changed so that it focuses on

    “what people can do, rather than what they can’t”.

    That is laudable, but precisely the same form of words was used by Alistair Darling to introduce changes to the incapacity benefit system 25 years ago. Whether the detail turns out to be a good thing will depend on the detail, which is largely absent. The Secretary of State spoke about consultation. The Government’s ill-fated disability strategy came to grief in the courts because had not adequately consulted disabled people. We must hope that that lesson has been learned.

    Nobody will mourn the work capability assessment, which the White Paper says will be replaced by

    “a new personalised health conditionality approach”.

    Can Ministers tell us what that means? The White Paper goes on to explain that it

    “will provide more personalised levels of conditionality and employment support”,

    but I am afraid that leaves us none the wiser. The problem is that, despite being years late, much of the vital detailed work does not seem to have been done yet.

    I welcome some of the specific proposals to reform PIP—for example, I am pleased that the call to match people’s primary health condition with a specialist assessor will at least be tested. Many PIP assessments come up with the wrong answer, as we know, because when people appeal against the determination, the great majority win their appeal—in fact, the proportion who do so has been going up. The White Paper proposes to place more weight on the PIP assessment in future, so it is even more important that we get it right. The only way to do that is to record all the assessments, so that if the decision is subsequently found to be wrong, it is possible to go back, work out why and consider how to avoid the same mistake being made again in future.

    The White Paper says that there will be an increase in recording, which is a good thing, but the Select Committee proposed five years ago that all assessments should be recorded, with an opt-out for the claimant if they did not want their assessment to be recorded. In the new contract for assessments to be agreed this year, the Department should instruct providers to record assessments by default with a clear opt-out option. That proposition is supported by all three assessment providers. It will ensure that there is an objective record of the assessment, which will reassure claimants and allow assessment quality to be audited. When recordings are available and the findings of assessments are overturned, the recordings should be checked at least on a sample basis to see whether an erroneous outcome could have been avoided.

    I welcome the White Paper’s commitment to test the feasibility of sending a copy of the assessor’s report to claimants automatically before the decision is made, which was also recommended by the Select Committee five years ago. I hope that the feasibility testing will be brief so that that can be introduced across the system soon.

    It is disappointing that there is still not yet a target for disability employment in the White Paper. The Government congratulate themselves on achieving the previous very undemanding target early, but I am pleased that the White Paper says:

    “Our goal to reduce the disability employment gap remains.”

    In the 2015 election campaign, David Cameron announced a target to halve the disability employment gap. Unfortunately, that target was quickly scrapped as soon the general election was out of the way. I hope that a clear target on the disability employment gap will now be adopted.

    Much will depend on the support that disabled people receive from work coaches. Polling by the charity Scope found that half of jobseekers with complex disabilities do not feel supported by work coaches. The initial training for work coaches does not seem to cover the barriers to work faced by disabled people, and jobcentres lack the specialist assistive technology that many disabled people need to look for and apply for work.

    The White Paper refers to the potential of the UK shared prosperity fund to provide employment support. It is disappointing that there will be, I think, a two-year gap between the European social fund ending and the UK shared prosperity fund being allowed to support employment projects. A witness to the Select Committee yesterday suggested that the flexible support fund might be expanded, at least temporarily, to try to bridge that gap.

    That could lead to a large amount of important employment support capacity not being lost, which it will be if the gap is allowed to take effect.

    Lastly, I appeal to the Secretary of State to spare us the embarrassment of the Department’s appealing against the ruling this week by the Information Commissioner that the Department’s research on the impact of benefit sanctions must be published. The Department promised to publish it. As was her wont, his predecessor but one, the right hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), decided to hide as much as possible if it contained any hint of a question mark about the Department’s policies. I welcome his review of that approach, and I hope he will show with this particular case that things have now changed.

  • Stephen Timms – 2023 Speech on Raising the State Pension Age to 68

    Stephen Timms – 2023 Speech on Raising the State Pension Age to 68

    The speech made by Stephen Timms, the Labour MP for East Ham, in the House of Commons on 1 February 2023.

    I congratulate the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) on securing this Backbench Business debate, which gives us the chance to ask for the Government’s views on this topic of great importance and enormous public interest. I am delighted that the Pensions Minister, the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), and the former Pensions Minister, the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), are in their places on the Front Bench.

    I agree with much of what the hon. Member for Amber Valley said. The idea of spending a third of adult life in retirement is a sensible yardstick to run with. He made the point, in passing, about the importance of implementing the recommendations of the auto-enrolment review, and I agree with him that that is important. We are repeatedly told that it will be done in the mid-2020s, but time to implement it before 2025 is either running out or has possibly already run out.

    In my remarks, I will focus on the process we are in. I recall the wise words of David Cameron, who said:

    “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

    He argued—rightly, in my view—for a culture of openness in government. One of the results of his view was the 2010 protocol on publication of all Government social research, which was most recently updated last year. It states:

    “Principle 1: The products from government social research and analysis will be made publicly available”,

    and that research should be published “promptly”, within 12 weeks of completion.

    For a number of years, that was, to their credit, the Government’s approach. In 2017, when the first review of state pension age was undertaken for the Government by John Cridland—as the hon. Member for Amber Valley has pointed out—his report, and the report of the Government Actuary, were both published on 23 March 2017, nearly four months before the DWP’s own review was set out on 19 July 2017, shortly after the hon. Member for Hexham took up his former post as Pensions Minister in June 2017.

    I have often expressed great regret that the Department, for some reason or other—perhaps reflecting a different approach across Government—has abandoned the practice set out by David Cameron and instead now resists publication of research and analysis, or delays it for as long as it possibly can. Preventing public discussion no doubt has the benefit of allowing Ministers to avoid having to answer difficult questions, but it has the disastrous drawback of worsening policy outcomes. The policy cannot be informed by public debate before the decisions are made, because the evidence that would allow a debate is not available. The Government publication protocol was watered down a little last year, but its essential gist remains unchanged. It says, for example:

    “The primary purpose of social research commissioned and conducted by government is to inform…policy and delivery, but it also plays a role in wider policy debate.”

    That is quite right, but, as we have discussed in the Chamber on various occasions, in the DWP the requirements of the protocol are simply ignored. They are not being fulfilled.

    I have been hoping very much that the new ministerial team will turn over a new leaf and take a more enlightened approach. Indeed, the new Secretary of State has hinted that he is considering the advantages of greater openness. But here we have a flagrant example of his predecessor’s bad habits of hiding analysis and evidence until it is convenient to the Government to release them. Instead of publishing the evidence four months before the Government’s decision, as was done in 2017—around the time the former pensions Minister, the hon. Member for Hexham, was appointed—the Department is keeping the evidence hidden until it makes its announcement “early in 2023”. Presumably, as the hon. Member for Amber Valley has suggested, that will be at the time of the Budget next month.

    In my brief contribution to this important debate, I mainly want to press the Minister to publish now both the report by the independent reviewer, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, which the Secretary of State received on 16 September last year—more than four months ago—and the related Government Actuary’s report, which was submitted to Ministers on 5 October. Publish them now. Why have they not been published already? What possible benefit can there be in keeping this important work and evidence hidden for all this time?

    The Select Committee has published today an exchange of letters with the Minister on the subject. When asked why these reports are not being published before the Government’s announcement as they were for the 2017 review, the Minister, who is in her place, replied that

    “this is a different publication schedule to the last review, the issues are still under consideration and so we think this approach is more appropriate.”

    In other words, they appear to be saying, “We don’t want anyone to see the evidence until we have made up our mind. This is still under consideration, so we think it is not appropriate to publish the evidence.” Surely, there ought to be a public debate about all this before the Government make their decision, not afterwards. This instinct of hiding things, not disclosing them, and not complying with the requirements of the cross-Government protocol is very damaging to the Government’s ability to make good policy.

    Surely, Ministers should take advantage of public debate to inform their decisions, rather than refusing to show anyone the evidence until after the Government have made up their mind. What has become of David Cameron’s belief in sunlight? We are talking here not about confidential advice to Ministers—there is no requirement to publish that—but rather about expert analysis that will eventually be published, and which sets out the evidence that will underpin the Government’s decision. Publish it now so that everybody can see it. The protocol says that

    “analysis should be published promptly…as early as possible following agreement of the final output.”

    So it should be. The recent independent review was announced in December 2021. The terms of reference said that it should explore what metrics the Government should take into account when considering how to set state pension age. They stated that it should include a consideration of recent trends in life expectancy in every part of the United Kingdom; whether it remained right for there to be a fixed proportion of adult life that people should, on average, expect to spend over state pension age, and what metrics would enable state pension costs, and the importance of sharing those fairly between generations, to be taken into account.

    The Select Committee agreed months ago that once Baroness Neville-Rolfe’s review had been published, we would take evidence on it, including from her, as the hon. Member for Amber Valley said, before the Government announced their decision. Now that the Government are unwilling to publish the analysis before they announce their decision, we clearly cannot do that.

    The Sun has reported that the Government plan to raise the state pension age from 67 to 68 as early as 2035, which will affect everyone who is 54 and under, instead of 10 years later, as set out in current legislation. Is that the right thing to do? Well, we need to see the evidence. The key evidence is about future projections of life expectancy. As we heard from the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), emerging evidence shows that the trend of rising life expectancy is not what it was before the pandemic.

    One of the expert witnesses at this morning’s meeting of the Select Committee said, “Mortality seems to have peaked, because one reason why there was increasing mortality was that the second world war lifestyle was ironically quite healthy for people, and the numbers are now going down quite a lot.” We were discussing something else this morning, and I do not know what evidence the witness was drawing on there, but I do not know what evidence the Government will draw on either, because it has not been published and it should have been. There should be no delay in publishing it.

    Cohort life expectancy statistics are produced every two years. A new set is expected this year. The latest, 2020-based projections show life expectancy at 65 still rising, but at a slower rate than in previous releases. Of course, the 2020 figures did not take any account of changes arising from the pandemic. The change in projection has prompted some commentators to call for the planned rises in the state pension age to be abandoned, or at least to be slowed.

    Lane Clark & Peacock took the latest Office for National Statistics life expectancy projections and reran the 2017 calculations of the Government Actuary’s Department. They concluded that any move from 67 to 68 would not be needed until the mid-2060s rather than the mid-2040s, and certainly not by the late 2030s, as suggested by The Sun. They also suggested that the move from 66 to 67, which is currently scheduled to be phased in over two years from 2026, could be put back until the end of the 2040s. They went on to argue that if further ONS statistics show relatively lower life expectancy growth, that could imply further delays to planned increases, and perhaps even abandoning the planned rise to 67.

    The former pensions Minister but two—I think— Steve Webb, who is now a partner at Lane Clark & Peacock said:

    “The Government’s plans for rapid increases in state pension age have been blown out of the water by this new analysis. Even before the Pandemic hit, the improvements in life expectancy which we had seen over the last century had almost ground to a halt.”

    Those are important public policy questions. They should be debated in Parliament and among the public before the Government announce their decision, so that that public and parliamentary debate can inform the Government’s decision. We should not just see the evidence after the Government have announced what they plan to do, because changing the Government’s mind at that point will not happen.

    A wide public debate should take place now, but it cannot happen unless the independent review and the Government Actuary’s report are published before the announcement is made. I ask the Minister to resist the temptation to keep the documents hidden for even longer and instead to remember the wise words of David Cameron, and to be open and publish those two key documents.

  • Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-10-29.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to involve disabled people in the design of better access to public transport.

    Andrew Jones

    The Department sponsors the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC). DPTAC has a Chair and 12 members with a range of impairments. It advises the government on transport legislation, regulations and guidance and on the transport needs of disabled people, ensuring disabled people have the same access to transport as everyone else.

  • Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-10-30.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to encourage manufacturing.

    Harriett Baldwin

    Our long term economic plan is working, with the UK growing faster than any other major economy in 2013 and 14. But job is not done, which is why we are working with industry to drive innovation and lead the global race in technology, engineering and manufacturing.

    To encourage investment in manufacturing and the economy as a whole, the Government has announced an increase in the permanent level of Annual Investment Allowance (AIA) from £25,000 to £200,000 from 1 January 2016. This incentivises investment in plant and machinery, and SMEs will benefit disproportionately.

    Catapult centres are further supporting the UK’s manufacturing productivity and competitiveness, facilitating collaboration and boosting inward investment. £300m has been invested in manufacturing through the High Value Manufacturing Catapult network and over the last year it has worked with over 1,650 private sector clients on over 1,300 projects.

  • Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-11-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how his Department has used benefit off-flow data in the last three years to calculate remuneration for jobcentre (a) managers and (b) advisers.

    Priti Patel

    Benefit off-flow data is not used to calculate increases to consolidated pay.

  • Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-11-23.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the ability of employees paid weekly to meet their living costs in the period between becoming unemployed and receiving their first payment of universal credit.

    Priti Patel

    Where a claimant’s earnings or income is insufficient to meet their living costs and in order to safeguard against financial hardship before the first Universal Credit (UC) payment, an advance payment of up to 50% of their UC award may be made.

    Personal Budgeting Support advice is also available to all claimants.

  • Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-12-01.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many applications have been made to councils for planning permission for change of use of a shop to betting premises since April 2015; and how many such applications have been successful.

    Brandon Lewis

    The Department for Communities and Local Government does not hold this information.

  • Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-12-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what estimate he has made of the level of the National Minimum Wage for people aged (a) 16 to 17 years, (b) 18 to 20 years and (c) 21 to 24 years in each year until 2020.

    Nick Boles

    The Government has not made an estimate of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) rates for these age groups for each year until 2020.

    The Government asks the Low Pay Commission to make NMW rate recommendations each year based on maximising the wages of the low paid without damaging employment opportunities. The Low Pay Commission will recommend the October 2016 NMW rates and indicative rates for 2017 by the end of February 2016.

  • Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-12-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, from which countries the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme accepts UNHCR referrals.

    Richard Harrington

    We work closely with the UNHCR to identify cases that they deem in need of resettlement. We take refugees that UNHCR have referred from the region, from Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt. This provides refugees with a more direct and safe route to the UK, rather than risking the hazardous journey to Europe.

  • Stephen Timms – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Stephen Timms – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-12-17.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when he expects Deutsche Bahn to commence operating international services from London St Pancras; and if he will make a statement.

    Claire Perry

    I recognise the international importance of the HS1 network in allowing high-speed rail services from London to reach Europe, whilst noting that no international services currently serve Stratford International station. Eurostar, in which the government recently sold its 40% stake, accesses the HS1 network on an open access basis and is not subject to the terms of a franchise agreement or a contract let by government. Government has no power to direct or specify that Eurostar stops at Stratford International station. A decision made by Eurostar not to serve Stratford International would be as a result of commercial imperatives and priorities, for example, the potential revenue derived from customers using the station or the increased journey time which a further stop would involve. It would not be appropriate for government to interfere with that decision-making process. I have not received any recent representations on this matter from potential or actual train operators; who in any event, should address their questions to HS1 Ltd, as the infrastructure manager, in the first instance; nor have I held any discussions with Eurostar on the matter of services to Stratford.

    Regarding any aspirations of Deutsche Bahn to commence operation of international services from St Pancras International, this is rightly a matter for HS1 Ltd as the infrastructure manager, who I understand have held discussions with a number of potential new entrants, including Deutsche Bahn. It would not be appropriate to comment on any ongoing commercial discussions between those parties.