Speeches by Timms.

“The Department has adopted an iterative approach, updating the universal credit system to reflect user needs as they develop. The new Government are committed to reviewing universal credit to make sure that it is doing the job we need it to.”

“My hon. Friend raises a very important point. Indeed, she and I worked on an excellent Select Committee report on health assessments for benefits, which provides some very important and valuable recommendations to the Department. We will continue to look at this issue. I am not familiar with the case that she refers to…”

“The hon. Gentleman raises a very fair point. It is, of course, important that we keep the awards under review, because sometimes they go up as well as down and we want to ensure that the support being provided is appropriate for the claimant. We also need to ensure that the process is accessible—I agree with him about …”

“The application process for personal independence payment is being kept under review. An online process is being trialled and we are looking at further potential improvements.”

“As my hon. Friend will know, there have been some very troubling cases of carer’s allowance overpayment. I am not sure whether carer’s allowance is part of the overpayment he describes, but I will be very happy to meet him to discuss what has gone wrong in this case.”

“The last Labour Government dramatically reduced child poverty, and we want to repeat their success. The child poverty taskforce is exploring how to harness all available levers, including social security reform, and it will publish its strategy next spring.”

“I am delighted to congratulate Joseph, and I welcome my hon. Friend’s drawing his achievements to our attention. I spent an inspiring few days at the Paralympics in Paris not long ago. It was partly inspiring because we came second behind only China—ahead of the USA, and ahead of all the other European countries as wel…”

“We want a more inclusive society with less discrimination, and our election manifesto committed us to putting the views and voices of disabled people at the heart of all we do. As a first step, we are legislating to deliver equal pay for disabled people, with disability pay gap monitoring for larger employers.”

“Yes, we will. Accessibility is at the heart of the Government’s passenger-focused approach, and with a unified rail network, we will be able to meet accessibility needs more reliably and consistently and plan how best to improve accessibility across the entire network.”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I agree that we need to support carers properly. We want to get to the bottom of what has gone wrong with these overpayments and why so many people have been caught out. We have been piloting the introduction of a text message service, as I have mentioned, which has involved text…”

“The work of unpaid carers is vital and often heroic, and we are determined to give them the support that they need. We are currently looking at options for tackling the problem of overpayments, including the possible introduction of a text message alert service.”

“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I am not familiar with the arrangements in Northern Ireland, but certainly in the rest of the UK it is very clear that contractors ideally need to pay up-front, buy tickets and give them to the jobseeker before they embark on their journey, or, if not, reimburse them very quickly on…”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Performance is reviewed regularly and there are customer satisfaction surveys, but unlike the previous Government, this Government want to publish performance data so that everybody can see what is going on.”

“Provider guidance, which is published on gov.uk, makes clear that contractors on all our employment programmes must reimburse customers’ reasonable travel costs.”

“We will be saying more and we will provide an update in the forthcoming “Getting Britain Working” White Paper. If the hon. Lady would like to drop me a line about the Special Olympics, I would be happy to look into that as well.”

“I thank the hon. Lady for her welcome. I am looking forward to a meeting with Sir Robert later on this month, and we will be talking exactly about that matter.”

“The hon. Gentleman draws my attention to a concerning development. My view is that we need more support for people with learning disabilities to get into work, not less. If he sends me the details of the concerns he has raised, I will be happy to look into them further.”

“I very much welcome my hon. Friend’s positive report of the work in her local jobcentre. She highlights a major challenge behind a significant proportion of increased inactivity over the past few years. We will set out our response in the “Getting Britain Working” White Paper, but we are already providing tailored supp…”

“We are committed to supporting vulnerable customers into work. At jobcentres, for example, we can identify the support needed and signpost people to courses or organisations to help them overcome barriers. We will be saying more about our proposals in the forthcoming employment White Paper.”

“I am not familiar with the report to which the hon. Member refers, but we committed in our manifesto to reviewing universal credit, nearly 15 years after it was first launched. The cliff edge issue and others will be among those that we will want to look at in the course of that review.”