Speeches by Timms.

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right to press for improvements. We want to change how we think about jobcentres and the benefit system. Our youth work coaches talk a lot to disabled young people and are very keen to help more. Our reforms are making that possible, by giving better help and support, and by opening up new …”

“Again, the hon. Gentleman is right to call for improvements. We want to see improvements in assessments, and he is probably well aware that we will shortly be publishing a Green Paper with proposals for reform to the health and disability benefit system. We will have something to say about this in that document.”

“We will be reforming the current broken system of health and disability benefits. We will bring forward a Green Paper with proper plans very soon, setting out how we will help disabled people who can work to do so, while fully supporting the most severely disabled as well.”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That balance will be at the heart of the Green Paper that we are bringing forward. We will deliver proper employment support for disabled people, which has been taken away since 2010. We will deal with the incentives to inactivity that the current system presents. Of course, there wi…”

“I am concerned about the level of anxiety and speculation that has been around over recent weeks. I am sad that that has happened and that people have been concerned, but the current welfare system is failing the very people it is supposed to help—the people it is there for. Our aim is to make the system sustainable so…”

“I can confirm to my hon. Friend that we will produce a full impact assessment in due course.”

“I remember extremely well when the right hon. Lady was a Minister in the Department—it was very striking how the disability employment gap, which had been falling up until 2010, suddenly stopped falling and plateaued from that moment on. We will deliver a decisive shift to early intervention, helping people to stay in …”

“My hon. Friend sets out exactly the balance that we need to strike with our plan: proper employment support on the one hand, which has not been available in the past, and dealing with work disincentives in the current system on the other. When he sees the proposals shortly, I think he will welcome the measures we are p…”

“As we have already made clear today, we are absolutely determined to protect those who need to be protected in the proposals we are bringing forward. I think the hon. Lady will welcome and be reassured by the proposals when she sees them.”

“Of course, some of those things do not come from the Department, which makes it more complicated. Discretionary housing payments, for example, come from the local council. It is a very good question to raise. What I am hoping is that when we have this new safeguarding approach that I have referred to, which we will pub…”

“If you just indulge me for a moment, I just wanted to make a comment about John Pring’s book, “The Department”, which I have read and others may well have read, subtitled, “How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence”. It is obviously a very strong allegation that is being made. My view is…”

“Can I make one further point, sorry, before you all leave?”

“Yes, we can do that. Just a general point here about openness: there is a strong case for the Department being more open about this whole process than has been the case in the past, and I think if we do that, that will be quite an important step in rebuilding the trust in the Department.”

“Where the 75 came from—is that the information?”

“It is, on the face of it, quite surprising that the Serious Case Panel does not look at serious cases. It looks at themes, as Neil has said. It does not look at individual cases. That is one of the things we just need to reflect on—whether that is right or whether there is something missing in the system that we ought …”

“We are looking at this. There is an argument for a more proactive approach here, but we do have to work through the various legal issues. It could involve providing information to a family member who did not previously know about a particular thing that was going on, and all that needs to be thought about. However, in …”

“Yes.”

“Let me start. It is very important that there is much more openness in the future around this whole process. You have asked about the criteria and that is one area, but also about what is learned from these reviews and what the upshot of them is as well. That has been pretty opaque in the past and that needs to change.…”

“Should there be better data? I would certainly welcome there being better data. The question, I suppose, is how such data would be gathered. The Department works quite hard to gather information from as wide a range of sources as possible about what is going on. You may want to talk to me about the Serious Case Panel t…”

“A big part of their job is engaging with people outside the Department, including giving their phone number and just making sure that they are able to provide an effective link.”