Sir Stephen Timms

Sir Stephen Timms

Labour — East Ham

Speaking in the House of Commons on 11 November 2026

Debate

Welfare

Contribution

The British Retail Consortium recently announced a programme of 100,000 work experience opportunities and jobs for young people. There is a lot of employer enthusiasm here. Sir Charlie Mayfield, who I was talking about, started working up his ideas with 60 vanguard employers, after publishing his report a year ago. The vanguard group is now up to 230. With regional leadership across the UK, Keep Britain Working is working with another 400 employers, mostly small and medium-sized enterprises, to test and develop better approaches to managing health and disability in the workplace. We are looking at the reform of Disability Confident and we are recruiting an extra 480 staff to turn around Access to Work applications more quickly.

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