"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. We will not …..." Stephen Timms - View Speech
"Yes, I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. I pay tribute to her work as the chair of the APPG on disability, and I am grateful to her for her welcome to us the other week. She is absolutely right. I very much hope that people with sight impairments …..." Stephen Timms - View Speech
"Yes, I shall look out for the right hon. Gentleman’s letter and I hope he will receive a reply in short order. He is right that the system needs to work well for people to be confident in it. One thing he may welcome is that we have just started …..." Stephen Timms - View Speech
"My hon. Friend makes a very important point, and she is absolutely right. It has certainly been very clear in our review that there is concern among disabled people about some of the misinformation that she refers to. We want to ensure that correct and clear information is provided to …..." Stephen Timms - View Speech
"I am very pleased to be able to pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her amendment. As she rightly says, that was what took us down the road of co-production, which I think has been a very fruitful avenue for the review. Central Government have certainly not done co-production …..." Stephen Timms - View Speech
"Our objective must be both the things that the hon. Lady refers to. We need a system that works well for disabled people and that helps to remove unnecessary barriers that too often hold them back, but we also need to create a system that has the confidence of taxpayers, …..." Stephen Timms - View Speech
"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. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) just gave us an example—is that people have applied, the outcome has been wrong, and there has been …..." Stephen Timms - View Speech
"It is certainly our objective that the dehumanising aspects of the current system—he describes an example very well—should not be a feature of the future system. That is the clear aim of this review. The case to which he refers is not unusual, and many hon. Members will have similar …..." Stephen Timms - View Speech
"The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the importance of language. This is a topic that the organisation Turn2us has been thinking about lately. One of the things that I am pleased about is that my job title is Minister for Social Security. I think that I am the first …..." Stephen Timms - View Speech
"My hon. Friend raises an extremely important point, which is at the heart of the Keep Britain Working review that Sir Charlie Mayfield is leading at the moment. He produced his report in November, which was directly about what more employers can do to ensure that their workplaces are accessible …..." Stephen Timms - View Speech