Speeches by Timms.

“The hon. Member raises a very important point. She will probably be aware of the Buckland review, published before the election, which looks specifically at employment support for people with autism. The Minister for Employment and I met Sir Robert Buckland recently, and we are looking at how we can take forward the id…”

“My hon. Friend raises a very important point. There is a problem in the interaction between the universal credit taper rate and the housing benefit taper for people in supported and temporary accommodation. We are, at the moment, looking at options for how to tackle that quite serious work disincentive problem.”

“I welcome the NAO report, which I asked for last May, when I was Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee. We are determined to address the problem of carer’s allowance overpayments. The cliff edge could be dealt with through the introduction of a taper instead of the current arrangements, as the Chancellor mentioned i…”

“Yes, I can confirm that. We place a very high value on the contribution of family carers. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, the Budget announcement on the carer’s allowance earning threshold will help avert inadvertent overpayments, and will make an additional 60,000 carers eligible for carer’s allow…”

“I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we will make the right decisions, and they will be set out in our Green Paper in the spring. There is a need to reform the health and disability benefits system—there is no question about that—and we want to talk to disabled people themselves about the details, in order to make sure…”

“We want to reform the system to do a much better job in helping people to enter and stay in work. We will publish a Green Paper next spring and we will be discussing our proposals with disabled people.”

“The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting suggestion. That is not something I am considering at the moment, but as he will have heard me say earlier, we will be reviewing universal credit over the course of the next year or so. We certainly want to support young care leavers—he will know of the recent announcement that w…”

“No assessment along the lines that the hon. Gentleman asks about has been made. Benefit rates are reviewed each year, increasing by 6.7% last April and by 1.7% from next April, in line with inflation.”

“We are watching very carefully the progress of migration from tax credits to universal credit, which will be complete in the early part of next year, but I would be very happy to meet the hon. Lady and discuss some of the difficulties she is seeing.”

“I can assure my hon. Friend that advances of up to 100% of potential universal credit entitlements are available urgently during the first assessment period of a claim, but she is right to raise concerns about the five-week wait. I commend to her the excellent report on this subject published by the Work and Pensions C…”

“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her point and can certainly give her the assurance that she seeks. As she knows, in the Budget we made an important improvement to the arrangements for carer’s allowance through the commitment that the earnings threshold for carer’s allowance will be increased to 16 hours a week at t…”

“I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) on initiating this debate and on her speech. We have been reminded that Disability History Month was inaugurated by an early-day motion in this House in 2010, of which our former colleague, Dame …”

“It was a very good event. I made some rather poor efforts to address the group in British Sign Language—my first attempt. I know that she will be pleased—I am sure the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths) will be as well—to know that we are committed to supporting the British Sign Language …”

“I am pleased that my hon. Friend has met her constituent, and of course I would be glad to meet her, her constituent and his parents. Let me set out some of the steps that we are taking towards our goal. First, we are working hard to provide better support for disabled people who want to work. My hon. Friend the Member…”

“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) on securing this timely debate, continuing her long-standing record, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, as a champion for disabled people in Parliament. I am looking forward to engaging with her regularly as Ch…”

“I am glad to be able to tell the hon. Gentleman, who raises an important point, that in the race and disability equality Bill, which my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth referred to, we will deliver on our manifesto commitment to disability pay gap reporting for large employers. We will also place …”

“The hon. Member’s constituent raises an important point. Indeed, I was pressed on that point earlier today by Peter White in an interview that will be broadcast tonight. Our ambition is for a national care service. That is what we are working for, with a long-term plan that sits alongside our long-term plan for the NHS…”

“I certainly welcome opportunities to do that. We need to learn from all the devolved Governments in the UK. There are interesting things happening in Scotland, for example, on social security, and in Northern Ireland, so I am grateful to the hon. Member for drawing my attention to a number of those. I am keen to pursue…”

“I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I too congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) on securing this important and illuminating debate, and on the way she introduced it. She has a very deep commitment to this issue, as I know from her long-term work on the all-party p…”

“My hon. Friend, in describing her constituency, speaks for the whole country. Disabled people and people with health impairments are very diverse, and we want to promote diverse, specialist initiatives to support people to stay in work, to get back into work if they have lost their job, and to progress in work, includi…”