The Timms review appears to be paralysed by a set of impossible choices and remains unable to even decide how to appoint members to the panel, a letter to the Commons Work and Pensions Committee (WPC) has revealed.
Back on 13 September, we told readers that the WPC had written to Stephen Timms asking to be told, amongst other things:
- What the arrangements were for the co-production of the Timms review?
- Who would be involved in the Timms review and would they influence its terms of reference?
- Would there be cuts to the overall PIP budget as a result of the review?
The committee asked for a response by 17 September and, at the time, we predicted that the answer would be late, dismissive and would contain almost no concrete information at all.
Well, to be fair, Timm’s reply was polite rather than dismissive.
But it was two weeks late and, as predicted, extraordinarily lacking in details.
Instead, Timms explained that he had met with disability and welfare charities, think tanks and other experts over the summer to consider how the review could best be co-produced and that “the Government is currently working through the feedback received”.
Timms did confirm again, that the review would be “led by a core group of around a dozen people, the majority of whom will be disabled.”
He did not say whether the panel would have any influence over its terms of reference, which have already been set out. Instead, he merely said the panel would “decide how they will operate, including how to ensure wide and meaningful engagement beyond the steering group itself”.
But deciding how you will operate is not the same as deciding what issues you will look at and what your objectives will be.
Timms also refused to be drawn on whether the review would reduce PIP spending, saying only that there is no “fixed set of outcomes”.
In fact, as we have noted before, Timms appears to be in an impossible situation. The abandoned PIP 4-point rule was supposed to have imposed massive cuts to PIP eligibility before the Timms review even began. In which case, there would have been no need for the review to impose further major cuts.
And there was never any serious intention for the Timms review to be co-produced, until this concession also had to be made to get the government’s welfare changes through parliament.
But now the Timms review appears to be Labour’s last chance to try to impose cuts to PIP under the cover of modernisation.
However, if the review is genuinely co-produced by independently appointed disabled people, it’s more likely to propose extending eligibility to PIP rather than cutting it.
On the other hand, if the panel is clearly packed with government stooges who recommend cuts to PIP, Labour is likely to face another backbench rebellion.
So, the review is stalled before it even begins, whilst Timms desperately tries to find a way forward.
Even the option of simply dragging the review out until it is all but forgotten is problematic.
In the very near future the government will publish a White Paper. This will include details of how and when the work capability assessment will be abolished. Eligibility for the universal credit health component will then be dependent upon getting the daily living component of PIP.
But this whole concept was based on the expectation that the PIP 4 point rule would drastically cut the numbers entitled to PIP daily living.
If PIP daily living is left as its, then this will have a knock-on effect on the numbers who will get UC health.
So, the government has put itself in what appears to be an impossible position and, here at Benefits and Work, we have no idea how they will get themselves out of it.
Nor we suspect, does anyone in government. And so, the Timms review paralysis continues.
You can download a copy of the Timms letter to the WPC from this page.
