Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure the successful integration of people arriving from Hong Kong into UK communities after the British National Overseas Passport route opens on 31 January 2021; and if she will make a statement.
Stephen Timms: I congratulate the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) on securing this debate and on the powerful and effective speech that he made. I am delighted to see you in the Chair, Ms Ali. We have an early years crisis. Ofsted reports that there were 14,000 fewer childcare providers last March than in March 2015, because of the market failure that the hon. Member for Winchester described. We...
Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with representatives (a) among the self-employed and (b) workers in the creative arts sector on the operation of the social security system during the covid-19 outbreak.
Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance she has given to jobcentre staff on relaxing normal work search requirements for benefit claimants who are self-employed and highly experienced but temporarily unable to find work in their usual field during the covid-19 outbreak.
Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions her Department is having with representatives of (a) Equity and (b) other similar organisations on social security support for self-employed workers in the creative industries during the covid-19 outbreak; and if she will make a statement.
Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether the £5 billion announced in the 2020 Spring Budget to ensure all homes and businesses can access gigabit broadband by 2025 remains available for that purpose; and if he will make a statement.
Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what his target is for gigabit broadband coverage by 2025.
Stephen Timms: I welcome the Minister’s agreement to look at the idea of a regulator. Will she consider the idea of setting standards for temporary accommodation for that regulator to monitor?
Stephen Timms: Thirty-six years ago, I was a new Newham councillor. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Ms Brown), who is in her place, was elected a few years later, but at that time, 36 years ago, I was placed in a working party on the borough’s temporary accommodation crisis. We set a target that everybody should be in a permanent home by Christmas, and all 30 households were. It was a different...
Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department of 8 October 2020, Official Report, column 223WH, what progress her Department has made on improving the time taken to determine applications for exemption from the No Recourse to Public Funds condition.
Stephen Timms: What assessment he has made of the economic effect of increasing legacy benefits by £20 per week in line with the recent increase to the standard universal credit allowance.
Stephen Timms: The Joseph Rowntree Foundation points out that raising social security benefits not only helps hard-pressed families, but boosts the economy because the increase is likely to be spent. Does the Chief Secretary recognise that raising legacy benefits in line with the £20 a week increase he has referred to that has already been introduced in universal credit would boost the economy while also...
Stephen Timms: The Minister is making it clear that he and his Department find it irksome having to comply with the current requirements of the law. Thank goodness they do, because the law is there to protect everyone, and I get the impression that a number of Government Members do not approve of that. What access have those who were due to be on this flight had to legal advice prior to the flight’s departure?
Stephen Timms: The number of households affected by the cap has more than doubled since the start of the pandemic, to 170,000. In addition, 160,000 households will come to the end of their nine-month benefit cap grace period in the coming month. So will the Secretary of State consider extending the grace period, to avoid cutting the benefits of hard-pressed families in the run-up to Christmas?
Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Answer of 31 January 2019 to Question 213168, what plans his Department has to bring the former East Ham police station building back into use.
Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 12 November to Question 106891 on Free School Meals: Immigrants, what plans he has to publish the outcome of the review being undertaken by his Department with the Home Department.
Stephen Timms: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks. Does he think the staff should get a pay rise?
Stephen Timms: I beg to move, That this House notes the First Report of the Work and Pensions Committee, “DWP’s response to the coronavirus outbreak”, HC 178; and calls on the Government to increase relevant legacy benefits in line with increases to universal credit, to take steps to return people who have been inadvertently left worse off under universal credit compared with their previous benefits,...
Stephen Timms: The Churches played the key role in the 20-year cross-party consensus on aid, and I pay tribute to their achievement since Jubilee 2000 and Make Poverty History. We all realised what abolishing DFID really meant. Why did the Secretary of State not realise it?
Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 16 November 2020 to Question 114047 on Immigrants: Coronavirus, if she will issue guidance to local authorities to clarify that families with No Recourse to Public Funds are eligible for help from Government funds provided for supporting disadvantaged families.