Speeches by Timms.

“I would be delighted to have support from across the entire House for the excellent proposals that we are bringing forward, and I am looking forward to the debate on Tuesday.”

“No. I have not seen an assessment along those lines. We will be offering employment support to everybody who loses their PIP whatever their age and we would like to see many more people in work. There are 2.8 million people at the moment out of work on health and disability grounds, economically inactive, and 200,000 o…”

“We will be offering support to older people as well as younger.”

“No, the support is being rolled out now. The Connect to Work programme is being rolled out across the entire country, the whole of England and Wales, by the end of this year and that next year is funded to support 100,000 people. The support is coming into place now. It is building up.”

“We are building up to £1 billion a year by the end of the Parliament but we are on track now.”

“No, that is not the case. There are 100,000 on Connect to Work but there are lots of other things going on, with inactivity trailblazers and this growing programme that I have referred to building up to an additional £1 billion a year by the end of the Parliament. There is going to be a huge amount going on. The scale …”

“First, and maybe Shaun will tell me, the increase in the universal credit standard allowance by the end of the period we are talking about is somewhat higher I think than the figure you mentioned.”

“The key thing is, yes, we are reducing the incentive but we are also providing support. That is the key part of the jigsaw that has been absent in the past. There must be proper employment support. It is not just a question of reducing the level of the premium but providing the support that people need.”

“Conditionality is an interesting topic. If we are moving on to that I would be very interested to talk about it.”

“I think the evidence is pretty clear that the best kind of employment support for people out of work on health and disability grounds is voluntary support where people have chosen to seek that support. We need to think more about conditionality in this area and certainly it is my view that it is perfectly reasonable fo…”

“As we are doing.”

“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.”

“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 …”

“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 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.”

“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 …”

“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, 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…”

“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…”

“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.”