Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 5 October 2020 to Question 96745, whether the proposed legislation will be applied retrospectively to households whose Universal Credit was previously reduced by the unlawful approach to calculating their earned income.
Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Universal Credit claimants rented from a private landlord and had (a) dependent children and (b) no dependent children in (i) the most recent month for which data is available and (ii) the same month in 2019.
Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people of state pension age received Housing Benefit for a private rented home in (a) the most recent month for which data is available and (b) the same month in 2019.
Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to recommendation 6 of her Department's Policy Equality Statement of 17 April 2020, when she plans to reissue that Policy Equality Statement on No Recourse to Public Funds so that it addresses the point relating to the impact on British citizen children.
Stephen Timms: If she will increase jobseeker’s allowance by £20 per week in line with universal credit.
Stephen Timms: The Select Committee’s report published today calls for new starter payments to claimants of universal credit to help tide them over the very difficult five-week wait for their first regular benefit payment, and for the £20 a week increase, which the Secretary of State has referred to, to be made permanent. How can it possibly be justified for people claiming jobseeker’s allowance and...
Stephen Timms: What information the US Administration is required to provide to his Department on its activities at RAF Croughton.
Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people were granted an extension to their Leave to Remain in the last 12 months with No Recourse to Public Funds conditions.
Stephen Timms: We have had an excellent debate. I am grateful to everyone who has contributed to it and to the Minister for listening and for the offers that he has made. The big expansion of no recourse to public funds came in 2012. It was an integral part of the hostile environment, or the “compliant environment” as it is now called, and the families we are talking about are, as others have said,...
Stephen Timms: The letter from the Home Office chief statistician dated 3 July, which is on the UK Statistics Authority website, states: “Home Office administrative data only captures information on whether visas are subject to NRPF conditions for in-country extensions.” I have asked how many there are, but received no answer.
Stephen Timms: My hon. Friend made a point in passing that I want to highlight. I do not know whether it is well known, but we are talking about a large number of British-born children whose parents cannot claim child benefit for them. I do not think most people know that is the case, but it is.
Stephen Timms: I beg to move, That this House has considered No Recourse to Public Funds. I begin by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for facilitating the debate in our first week back in Westminster Hall. It is great to be back, and it is very good to see you in the chair, Ms Nokes. I am very pleased to see the Members who have come to take part in the debate, and I am pleased to see the Minister...
Stephen Timms: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Any London MP who has done an advice surgery in the recent past would be very familiar with this issue. Under the “no recourse to public funds” policy, the family I spoke of and thousands of others were getting no help at all. Last Friday I visited the Deptford warehouse of the remarkable charity FareShare, which gathers surplus food from farms and...
Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the sustainability of outdoor education facilities affected by covid-19 restrictions; and if he will make a statement.
Stephen Timms: As has already been widely said, there is much to welcome in this Bill. Some important changes were made in the other place, and I pay tribute to the work that it did. I also appreciate the efforts that the Minister has made to work with my hon. Friends on the Front Bench, with me and the Work and Pensions Committee, and with others across the House to secure broad support for the measures in...
Stephen Timms: I am extremely grateful to the Minister for those points and for the work that he has done, the responsive way that he has looked at the issue over the past couple of months and for the information that he has now provided. I will be very keen to hear from the Pensions Scam Industry Group whether it feels that the proposal that the Minister has now tabled will meet the points that it has been...
Stephen Timms: I welcome this measure in the Bill, reflecting changes in the other place. As the Secretary of State said, the intention is to require, in certain circumstances, savers to take advice before they move their pension savings into what might be a scam. I wonder whether she agrees with me that we should go further and allow trustees to prevent a transfer where it looks as though the savings are...
Stephen Timms: The Government were right to increase universal credit by £20 a week to help families with the extra costs of the pandemic but, at the moment, that increase is due to be removed next April. The Prime Minister has declined today to commit to making it permanent, but will he at least agree with me that it would be unthinkable to cut everyone’s benefit before the pandemic is over?
Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the oral contribution of the Minister for Welfare Delivery on 25 June 2020 Official Report, column 1455, what progress she has made on implementing the Court of Appeal judgment of 22 June 2020 in the case of Johnson, Woods, Barrett and Stewart v. the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
Stephen Timms: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her oral statement of 19 March 2020, Official Report, column 1168, on Windrush Lessons Learned Review, what progress she has made on looking into the treatment of the overseas students falsely accused of cheating in English language tests; and if she will make a statement.