Timms Interim Review

This month I held an online workshop with constituents navigating the personal independence payments system (PIP) to feed into the Timms Review. The experiences people shared made it clear that the system is not working.

I’m very grateful to everyone who attended, and for the courage and articulacy they showed in recounting very difficult experiences. What they told me completely backs up the initial interim review findings that the process is fundamentally flawed and dehumanising, degrading and stressful. Feeding in these experiences will hopefully mean others in the future don’t have to go through the same thing.

PIP is supposed to help people with the extra costs of living with a disability, from adaptive equipment to travel expenses, and to help them live independently and enable them to work. It is not meant to be their core income, but for many that is what it has become. Where people want to work and can do so, they should be supported into employment rather than facing unnecessary barriers.

Alongside this review, the Pathways to Work Innovation Fund will develop new ways of helping disabled people move closer to, and into, work. This forms part of a wider £3.5 billion package of employment support.

When both the Milburn Review into youth unemployment and Timms Review are complete, we will have a much clearer picture of the reforms needed.