Speeches by Timms.

“I think the biggest changes would be for those who are currently in the LCWRA group who get absolutely nothing at all now. Our view is that it is reasonable to expect the great majority of people at least to talk to us about what their work ambitions are and about the support that we can provide to enable them to fulfi…”

“Yes. As I said, the changed role for this assessment is certainly an important factor in the background to the review.”

“You are right, the work capability assessment at the moment is used to determine the conditionality applied to a particular individual and somebody classed as unable to work, as LCWRA, they get no support or engagement at all. They are abandoned by the system. What we want instead is to be able to guarantee personalise…”

“There are rules at the moment, and they have been in place for some time, to encourage working age people in receipt of health and disability benefits to try work. I do not think those rules are very well known but it may be, as you say, that even if they were, people would not really believe it and so it would not mak…”

“We are looking at the moment at the terms of reference for the PIP review. The background to it is that it is a long time now since PIP was introduced. It was introduced in 2013, 12 years ago—the Chair and I will certainly remember that happening—and it is being looked at. Paul Gray carried out a couple of reviews in 2…”

“It is the start of a process. I have no doubt that once people have seen them people will have comments on them and no doubt between then and the regulations taking effect there will be some changes. We are doing it in parallel with the Bill.”

“We will be bringing forward regulations and those regulations I shall be placing in the library of the House by Monday so they will be public ahead of the Second Reading of the Bill due to take place on Tuesday.”

“People above state pension age by and large will not be affected by these changes. The reason for that is that they are on what are known as ongoing awards with a light touch review that happens once every 10 years or so. The light touch review does not involve a reassessment for those who are over state pension age. T…”

“No, we do not. I always thought it was a slightly odd plan that the previous Government had, which was to abolish WCA but to make big changes to it for the last couple of years of its existence. We have made clear we will not make those changes to the WCA. We are going to abolish the WCA. We are not going to change tha…”

“Yes, there are people who at the moment are on LCWRA due to non-functional special circumstances, which I think is probably what you are referring to—people with cancer, for example, going through cancer treatment, people with high-risk pregnancy and also people classified as substantial risk at the moment. We recognis…”

“Finishing off the under-22 point, I agree with you about the importance of improving mental health support and I think that the Scottish Government should be following the lead that Wes Streeting and his colleagues are taking in England. Of course we know the best thing for somebody’s mental health, particularly at tha…”

“Yes, I would be glad to. Our concern is at the moment too many young people are being categorised as unable to work right at the start of their working lives and left with no engagement and no support. That means that they face the prospect of being trapped in long-term economic inactivity before their career has even …”

“It does take time, and it will take time before these changes come in as well. That is the point I was making earlier about the need to make progress on all of these tracks in parallel, including fixing the NHS. It will be November next year, getting on for 16 months, before the changes to PIP start to take effect, so …”

“I am pleased to say we are fixing the NHS, as you know.”

“I have had concerns raised with me about some aspects of this and no doubt at some point we will want to have a look at it, but it is not part of the proposals that we are bringing forward at the moment.”

“I think the Motability scheme, the mobility component of PIP, has an important job to do. We were talking earlier about people being able to get to work and the mobility component is very important for many people with a health issue or a disability to enable them to stay in work.”

“I have had one or two of those conversations. I think sometimes that is around the cost of travel to work, and of course we have the Access to Work programme that delivers help for that kind of cost. There are some long delays at the moment in Access to Work because of the very big increase in demand for it over the la…”

“I do not think they are contradictory. I think what is happening is that the inactive bit of the system, which is the reason that 2.8 million people at the moment are out of work on health and disability grounds, people are moving. People are moving into employment. People are moving into the active part of the system …”

“Employment is up, inactivity is down since the election. We want to keep on that trajectory. There is a long way to go but we are on the right track.”

“No. As you say, PIP is a contribution to the costs imposed on people by their disability or health impairment. It is a contribution towards those costs and the person receiving it can be in work or out of work. The benefit does not have anything to do with work. About one in six, 17%, of those who claim PIP are in work…”