Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill

Stephen Timms Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Pakes]

I thank my hon. Friend for making an important point. I would, if possible, give my right hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and Disability Duracell batteries to turbocharge his work in this area.

[The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)]

During this debate, my hon. Friend and others across the House have raised concerns that the changes to PIP are coming ahead of the conclusions of the review of the assessment that I will be leading. We have heard those concerns, and that is why I can announce that we are going to remove clause 5 from the Bill in Committee. We will move straight to the wider review—sometimes referred to as the Timms review—and only make changes to PIP eligibility activities and descriptors following that review. The Government are committed to concluding the review by the autumn of next year.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would be grateful for your clarification. We have just heard that a pivotal part of the Bill, clause 5, will not be effective, so I ask this: what are we supposed to be voting on tonight? Is it the Bill as drawn, or another Bill? I am confused, and I think Members in the Chamber will need that clarification.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)]

We have had a passionate and eventful debate. We have heard the concerns, and the Government will amend the Bill, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I have set out, but the system we have inherited does not work. Uniquely in the G7, our employment rate is still lower than before the pandemic. Every other G7 country has got back to where it was before, or better, but we have not. The system is trapping hundreds of thousands of people needlessly in low income and inactivity. It tells people that they cannot work, and for many of them that is simply untrue. We have to change that.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Ind)]

I am sorry to come in so early in the Minister’s peroration, but we have limited time. Can I have the assurance, on the concession given this evening with regard to the Timms review, that its outcome and recommendations will be in primary legislation, not delegated legislation?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

Let me say a little about the announcement I made in my intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) earlier on. We have listened to the concerns expressed in the debate, specifically about the new four-point threshold being implemented before the outcome of my review. As I have said, we will in fact move straight to my review and make changes to PIP eligibility activities and descriptors only following that review.

[Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)]

May I ask the Minister to confirm at the Dispatch Box that clause 5, which specifically references the need for claimants to score four points in order to receive the daily living allowance, will be removed from the Bill?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

Yes, I can confirm to my hon. Friend that that is the case. We will table the amendment to do that.

Let me say in answer to the hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann), who raised this point perfectly properly in the debate, that we will also remove the parallel provisions for Northern Ireland. He suggested that that would mean removing clause 6, but it does not mean that, because there are a lot of other things in schedule 2, which is referenced in clause 6. Paragraph 4 of schedule 2 addresses the points that we are dealing with.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Stephen Timms]

Let me make a little further progress. I still have not quite answered the question put to me in the first place in the intervention by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). His question was about whether the outcome of the review will be implemented in primary or secondary legislation. That depends on the outcome of the review and the form of the assessment we take forward. We will come back to that when we have concluded the review.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Stephen Timms]

Let me make a little bit of headway before I give way again.

Under the last Labour Government, in the 12 years up to 2010, the disability employment gap fell steadily. In 2010, as soon as the Tories and Lib Dems took over and scrapped the new deal, it stopped falling, and it has barely shifted since. This Bill opens up the chance for proper support into work once again for people who are out of work on health and disability grounds. We will provide that again, recognising that with—for example—far more mental health problems among young people, the needs post pandemic will be different from those of the past. I listened with great interest to the powerful speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Dr Tidball), calling for a target for the disability employment gap. She makes a strong argument, and that is the kind of approach that we need to develop as we bring forward our plans for employment support.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I will not give way at the moment. The Bill opens up that possibility, and it deals with work disincentives inserted into universal credit by the previous Government. The current system forces people to aspire to be classified as sick in order to qualify for a higher payment, and once so classified, it abandons them. We have to change that system.

[Simon Hoare]

The House knows that not only is the Minister an honourable man, but he has spent the largest proportion of his parliamentary career looking at these issues. He must surely understand, however, that the confusion that has been expressed in this place is now being felt and expressed in the country at large. I have never seen a Bill butchered and filleted by its own sponsoring Ministers in such a cack-handed way—nobody can understand the purpose of this Bill now. In the interests of fairness, simplicity and natural justice, is it not best to withdraw it, redraft it, and start again?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

No, Madam Deputy Speaker. Let me tell the hon. Gentleman one of the things that the Bill does. Part of the problem is that it is very hard to bring up a family on the standard allowance of universal credit. The Tories reduced the headline rate of benefit to the lowest real-terms rate for 40 years. Families have to rely on food banks, and people aim to be classified as sick for the extra benefit. The system should not force people into that position; it needs to be fixed, and the Bill makes very important changes in that direction.

[Peter Lamb (Crawley) (Lab)]

I came here today with the intention of voting against the Government on this Bill. I have to say that with clause 5 having been removed —which, as I am sure everyone at home will be delighted to know, completely withdraws PIP from the scope of the Bill—there is consequently nothing to vote on. However, could the Minister give me some comfort by confirming whether or not the Timms review is going to take place within a spending envelope?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I can assure my hon. Friend that the review is not intended to save money—that is not its purpose. The review is to get the assessment right and make sure we have an assessment that will be fit for the future.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I need to make a little more progress. As a number of Members highlighted in the debate, including my hon. Friends the Members for Clwyd North (Gill German) and for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey), a key step in this Bill is the first ever permanent real-terms increase in the standard allowance of universal credit. Actually, it is the first permanent real-terms increase in the headline rate of benefit for decades, and of course, the Tory party is against it. The Tories froze benefits time and again, and created the work disincentives and mass dependence on food banks that this Government are determined to now erase.

We are, of course, also concerned that the future cost increases of PIP should be sustainable. Let me just look back at the record of those cost increases. In the year before the pandemic, 2019-20, PIP cost the then Government £12 billion at today’s prices; last year, it cost £22 billion. We want the system to be sustainable for the future. That is extremely important, because many people with large costs arising from ill health or disability depend on PIP. Those people need to be confident that the support will be there in the future, as well.

[Paul Holmes]

The Minister is doing an admirable job defending the farcical. Last week, there were £5 billion of savings. Today, there were £2.5 billion of savings. Then he came to the Dispatch Box and did three more U-turns. As he stands at that Dispatch Box today, how much will these new measures save the taxpayer?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Stephen Timms]

We will set out those figures in the usual way.

The last Government wanted to change the personal independence payment from cash to vouchers. They wanted to take the independence out of the personal independence payment, and we opposed them. It has been suggested that the benefit should be frozen, but the costs that the benefit is contributing to are continuing to rise along with all the other costs, so we oppose that, too. Some argue for means-testing, but disability imposes costs irrespective of income. We reject all those proposals.

Let me just make a comment about the concern that has been expressed—it does not arise now, given what I have announced—about a two-tier system. A two-tier system is completely normal in social security. PIP replaced DLA in 2013, but half a million adults are still on DLA today, and that does not cause problems. Parallel running is normal, and actually it is often the fairest way to make a major change.

[Barry Gardiner]

I think that Members on the Government Benches appreciate the concessions that the Minister has already made. When he is talking about whether measures will be put in primary legislation, he must understand that Members will not be able to amend things if they are not in primary legislation. That is a key concern when we do not know the outcome of the review.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

My answer to my hon. Friend is the one I gave earlier: we need to await the outcome of the review and the assessment that it develops to determine whether it will be implemented in primary or secondary legislation.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I want to make some further headway. In her speech, my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) drew attention to the fact that she and I had known each other for a long time, and that is correct. She urged us to listen to the voices of our constituents. In February, someone I had not met before came to my constituency surgery. He explained to me that he lost his arm aged six in a road accident. As a result, on leaving school at 16 he could not find a job. He tried really hard, but he could not find an employer that would take him, until in the year 2000 somebody told him about the new deal for disabled people, which found him a job. He then worked for 23 years without a break in a whole series of different jobs. He brought up his children and he paid his taxes, until in October 2023 he was in an unsatisfactory zero-hours job and he left it. To his dismay, he has not been able to find a job since. He came to me as his local MP to ask where to get help again, like he had from the new deal, but unfortunately that was all scrapped by the Tories and the Lib Dems after 2010. We are determined now to provide proper support again, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State yesterday announced further early funding for that support.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I will not be giving way again. The Tories were never really interested in the disability employment gap. They had a brief flirtation in the 2015 general election campaign, when David Cameron suddenly announced a target to halve the gap. Unfortunately, as soon as that general election had been safely won, that target was immediately scrapped, and they reverted to type.

We do care about disability employment. That is what we are making changes to address. In this Bill, we are making the changes to deliver.

Question put, That the amendment be made.