Results 121–140 of 10000 for (in the 'Commons debates' OR in the 'Westminster Hall debates' OR in the 'Lords debates' OR in the 'Northern Ireland Assembly debates') speaker:Stephen Timms

Saving for Later Life — [Stewart Hosie in the Chair] ( 7 Feb 2023)

Stephen Timms: Yes, I think the hon. Member is quite right. It is not just that women’s earnings are lower and therefore their pension contributions are lower; a lot of women earn below the current auto-enrolment earnings threshold, so they do not save anything at all. NOW: Pensions says that of the 14.6 million employed women in the UK, 17% do not meet the automatic enrolment criteria, compared with 8%...

Social Security and Pensions ( 6 Feb 2023)

Stephen Timms: I echo the relief expressed by the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) about the uprating decision, and I am pleased to follow his speech. I will begin with some points about the way we uprate benefits and echo some of the important points made by the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), whose contribution to the Select Committee I appreciate. We now know...

Social Security and Pensions ( 6 Feb 2023)

Stephen Timms: I absolutely agree. That was the one point at which food bank demand fell, and of course it went straight back up once the £20 uplift was removed. The level of the safety net is now too low for it to do its job properly from the standpoint of economic efficiency. People are being forced to accept unsuitable jobs, with no prospect of training or advancement, simply in order to subsist. That...

Social Security and Pensions ( 6 Feb 2023)

Stephen Timms: Actually, of course, it was brought down by economic reality. But I do not think that that Administration would have delivered an inflation uprating, so it is to the credit of the current Administration that they have done so. I also welcome the increase in the benefit cap. The cap was introduced in 2013 and then reduced in 2016; it has never been increased at all. At the beginning of April...

Social Security and Pensions ( 6 Feb 2023)

Stephen Timms: There is a strong case for that. At the time when the benefit cap was introduced, we were told that it was to prevent people from receiving more in benefits than they would if they were working, but any relationship with wage levels has long since disappeared. In its briefing for this debate, the Child Poverty Action Group makes the point that the increase does not undo the damage of the cap...

Social Security and Pensions ( 6 Feb 2023)

Stephen Timms: The right hon. Gentleman makes a very powerful argument that the rate at which rents are now rising is devastating household finances in many parts of the country. All the 2020 increase—the much-vaunted “generous uplift”—did was raise the local housing allowance back to the level at which it had been set at the beginning of the decade: at the 30th percentile of local rents. In other...

Social Security and Pensions ( 6 Feb 2023)

Stephen Timms: I simply want to respond briefly to the intervention of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who mentioned me in passing—inaccurately, I must say. He was wrong to say that benefits have been uprated in line with inflation. At the moment, the headline rate of benefits is the lowest in real terms for 40 years, following the repeated freezes we have had. Does my hon. Friend agree...

Raising the State Pension Age to 68 ( 1 Feb 2023)

Stephen Timms: The two documents from 2017 to which the Minister referred were published four months before the Government’s announcement. Why have the Government not published the documents before their announcement this time around, and will she do so now?

Raising the State Pension Age to 68 ( 1 Feb 2023)

Stephen Timms: I just want to know why they have not been published. What is the public interest in keeping these things hidden?

Raising the State Pension Age to 68 ( 1 Feb 2023)

Stephen Timms: I congratulate the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) on securing this Backbench Business debate, which gives us the chance to ask for the Government’s views on this topic of great importance and enormous public interest. I am delighted that the Pensions Minister, the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), and the former Pensions Minister, the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy...

Building Safety (30 Jan 2023)

Stephen Timms: My constituents welcome the Secretary of State’s grasp of their problems, but his changes have required some arrangements that were previously in place to be reworked. In the case of Barrier Point in my constituency, the insurers have responded to the delay by increasing the insurance charges for the coming financial year sixfold, as set out in my letter to him dated 13 January. Will the...

Ministerial Appointments: Vetting and Managing Conflicts of Interest (23 Jan 2023)

Stephen Timms: The current chairman of the Conservative party went on television before he settled his tax debt and said that his tax affairs were “fully paid and up to date”. We now know that that statement was untrue, do we not?

Work and Pensions: Local Housing Allowance (23 Jan 2023)

Stephen Timms: What assessment he has made of the impact of real-terms reductions in local housing allowance rates on families.

Work and Pensions: Local Housing Allowance (23 Jan 2023)

Stephen Timms: Rightmove reported last autumn that rents in London had increased by more than 16% in a year, yet, as the Secretary of State has said, housing support through local housing allowance has been frozen since 2020. Will Ministers look again in the Budget at the level of local housing allowance for the coming financial year?

Windrush Lessons Learned Review: Implementation of Recommendations (10 Jan 2023)

Stephen Timms: Will the Minister give the House a clear assurance that the Home Office will appoint a migrants commissioner?

Childcare: Affordability and Availability (20 Dec 2022)

Stephen Timms: I welcome the case that my hon. Friend is making, and congratulate him on securing the debate. Has he seen the report published today by the Select Committee on Work and Pensions on support for childcare costs in universal credit? It highlights two big problems. One is that people claiming universal credit have to pay the up-front costs of the first month’s childcare; they have to pay the...

Entrepreneurs from Ethnic Minority Backgrounds (20 Dec 2022)

Stephen Timms: I am grateful for the case the Minister is making, and I agree with what she has said. On the point about Companies House, would it not be a welcome step if it recorded the ethnic origin of company directors, so that we had some sense of the scale of what is happening?

Entrepreneurs from Ethnic Minority Backgrounds (20 Dec 2022)

Stephen Timms: I beg to move, That this House has considered support for entrepreneurs from ethnic minority backgrounds. I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I am grateful to Mr Speaker for granting this debate, and I am very pleased to see the Minister in her place. I represent in Parliament the eastern half of the London Borough of Newham, which is probably the most ethnically...

Entrepreneurs from Ethnic Minority Backgrounds (20 Dec 2022)

Stephen Timms: I very much agree with the hon. Member. That point is made in the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry report, and she is right to highlight it. Over half of black business owners say that they have seen banks taking action to deal with the problem, but only 12% think that that action taken is significant. Minority-led businesses also account for very little venture capital investment,...

Entrepreneurs from Ethnic Minority Backgrounds (20 Dec 2022)

Stephen Timms: I completely agree with the Father of the House. I had not seen that article, but it sounds to me as though it makes exactly the case that needs to be made. I wonder whether the Minister will commit to better engagement between the groups I mentioned, in order to boost diversity in business. Bridging this large and persistent ethnic diversity gap is not straightforward. Realising the...


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