Stephen Timms

They then tried to impose some cuts without having a plan in place and they were, you know, and there was a rebellion and they had to backtrack.

They've now got, you know, two reviews going on, one says Stephen Timms It's come out with some initial findings, but that's still carrying on.

They've also got the Milburn review.

I am hoping and trusting that both of those reviews will come out with some concrete and practical changes that will lead to that bill coming down and certainly not going up.

So, for example, someone with Parkinson's disease who perhaps needs a greater degree of heating throughout the year in order to be well, that is an understandable basis upon which a claim ought to be made and that should be recognised.

It is much less clear when it comes to low-level anxiety, things like ADHD, and that is what we have to get a grip of.

What worries me is that some of the things that Stephen Timms has said on the record have not been focused on a recognition about the need to save money.

This is not a sustainable position that we're in, and I didn't think personally that what the Prime Minister had to say this week was particularly reassuring on this point either.

And coming up after the news, there's a suggestion that make disability benefits as easy as possible to obtain, says a review.

Co-chair of the review, into PIP, Sir Stephen Timms.

The number of people receiving PIP has risen considerably and is forecast to continue growing.

When Hamas and Iran say you're doing right, do you need to reconsider your position? That's the verdict on Ed Miliband and those sanctions he introduced earlier this week.

And when you hear of the latest, there may be something to that.

Sickness benefits should be made as easy as possible to claim, according to a government review.

The long-awaited study, led by welfare minister and parliamentary veteran Sir Stephen Timms, found the system for claiming PIPs, personal independent payments, is too stressful for claimants and called for a shake-up.

The cost of PIPs, which is now the main disability benefit, will double in 10 years and will be around £40 billion by 2030.

And I think that has really informed what, what they're doing.

And similarly, um, I've just this week have been reading the, uh, Stephen Timms PIP review, P- P- Personal Independence Payment review, um, their, the interim report.

This came out of, in fact, [clears throat] kind of opposition to what the government was doing on disability benefits last summer, and it led to the setting up of this review and the agreement that it should be co-produced with disabled people.

And that really sh- it's a really good report.

The compensation change... would ensure bereaved families of workers who died from asbestos and other workplace dust-related diseases would receive the same funds as sufferers themselves.

Disability Minister Stephen Timms hails change to, quote, unfair system, quote, that penalised families.

Again, it's not the most important thing

in the world,

Or

even if you're in, you know, turned up your constituent's office where your constituents would come for surgeries, like Stephen Timms, Labour minister in 2010, who was stabbed twice during a constituency meeting.

Yeah, for surgery.

And he had life-threatening injuries and he was extremely fortunate to survive.

The receipts are there.

All you've got to do is go look at that and somebody will stand up in the audience and go,

yeah, Joe Cox, anyone? Stephen Timms?

Yeah.

And following up on to what extent, again, mental health, uh, conditions and diagnoses are keeping them out of the workplace, uh, to what extent there is a fundamental problem that, that needs to be addressed.

And then, of course, you've got Stephen Timms, the disability minister, doing a separate review into how personal independence payments and the wider disability benefits system works, and that-- this plays into that too 'cause you can, you can get PIP if you've got ADHD.

Yeah, and the whole wider debate about benefits and about welfare costs, which of course became a big issue under Keir Starmer, how Andy Burnham will handle this and, and how it'll play out with, uh, his own backbenchers and, you know, the Chancellor and the Treasury and, and the whole public spending, uh, public finance pressures.

It's gonna be a pretty busy autumn, isn't it?