Member of Parliament
Sir Stephen Timms
Labour MP for East Ham
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
At a glanceSir Stephen Timms is a Labour MP for East Ham, and has represented the seat for 32 years, 1 month. They currently serve as Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions). They have cast 432 votes in Commons divisions (75% attendance), tabled 3,557 written questions and registered 3 financial interests.
Attendance is votes cast as a share of the 575 Commons divisions since the 2024 election; Sir Stephen Timms did not vote in 143. A rebellion is a vote against the way most of their own party voted; free votes, where no party line applies, are left out.
Party-loyalty figures are our own analysis of the official voting records (recorded votes only; they do not describe the formal whip). How we work this out.
Biography
He currently holds the Government post of Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions).
Current roles
- Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions) Government post · Department for Work and Pensions since 8 Jul 2024
- East Ham Representation · Elected 1 time since 4 Jul 2024
- Labour Party since 9 Jun 1994
Voting record
Voting alignment
Votes most like
-
Liz Twist
Labour
100.0% · 416 of 416 shared votes
-
Sojan Joseph
Labour
100.0% · 413 of 413 shared votes
-
Sean Woodcock
Labour
100.0% · 409 of 409 shared votes
-
Lola McEvoy
Labour
100.0% · 403 of 403 shared votes
-
Patrick Hurley
Labour
100.0% · 397 of 397 shared votes
Votes least like
-
Sir Mel Stride
Conservative
0.8% · 2 of 236 shared votes
-
George Freeman
Conservative
0.9% · 2 of 223 shared votes
-
David Davis
Conservative
1.0% · 2 of 208 shared votes
-
Chris Philp
Conservative
1.2% · 3 of 260 shared votes
-
Victoria Atkins
Conservative
1.2% · 3 of 255 shared votes
Alignment figures are our own analysis of the official voting records (recorded votes only; they do not describe the formal whip). How we work this out.
Register of financial interests
From the official Register; shown as registered.
Miscellaneous3
- Trustee, Parliamentary Christian Trust. (registered 10 May 2018)
- Chair of Trustees, Traidcraft Foundation. (registered 10 May 2018)
- Trustee, East Thirteen Christian Trust. (registered 10 May 2018)
Written questions
Community Relations: Religion
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to help quantify the (a) economic and (b) social value of faith groups to the UK.
Answer · 22 May 2024
Faith is a vital part of peoples’ identities and of their communities. It guides the moral outlook of many, inspiring great numbers of people to public service. This Government recognises the huge contribution of people of faith to public life, and suppor...
Carer's Allowance: Overpayments
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Carer’s Allowance overpayment cases are being investigated by his Department; and if he will publish the level of overpayments being pursued, broken down into £1,000 ranges in the financial yea
Answer · 16 May 2024
There are currently 750 live cases where Carers Allowance is shown as the “primary” benefit under investigation. We do not hold information on the size of any individual overpayment whilst the investigation process is taking place – this is not determined...
Carer's Allowance
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many outstanding Carer’s Allowance Verify Earnings and Pension service alerts there were at the end of the financial year 2023-24.
Answer · 16 May 2024
The DWP is currently developing recommendations focused on helping claimants understand their responsibilities to report a change of circumstances and how DWP can help prevent the accumulation of debts amongst Carer’s Allowance claimants.
Carer's Allowance: Overpayments
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many (a) men and (b) women are in debt to his Department through overpayments of Carers Allowance.
Answer · 16 May 2024
As of 14th May 2024, the volume of people who have an outstanding Carers Allowance debt is 134,800 with a total value of £251m. This figure represents the total stock and as such the total monetary amount may have been accrued over multiple years. Those w...
Carer's Allowance: Overpayments
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people are in debt to the Department through overpayments of Carers Allowance; and how much do they owe in total.
Answer · 16 May 2024
As of 14th May 2024, the volume of people who have an outstanding Carers Allowance debt is 134,800 with a total value of £251m. This figure represents the total stock and as such the total monetary amount may have been accrued over multiple years. Those w...
UNRWA
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, pursuant to the Answer of 7 May 2024 to Question 24566 on UNRWA: Finance, when he plans to complete his careful consideration of Catherine Colonna's final report, UNRWA's response and the ongoing UN Office for Internal
Answer · 15 May 2024
As set out in the answer to Question 24566, the UK will set out its position on future funding to UNRWA following careful consideration of Catherine Colonna's final report, UNRWA's response and the ongoing UN Office for Internal Oversight Services investi...
Arms Trade: Israel
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, when she last held discussions with the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs on the sale of arms to Israel.
Answer · 15 May 2024
To support her decisions on export licensing to Israel, the Secretary of State for Business and Trade regularly receives advice from the Foreign Secretary and FCDO.We continue to monitor the situation in Israel and Gaza closely, and all of our export lice...
Free School Meals
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to uprate the income threshold for eligibility for free school meals.
Answer · 13 May 2024
The department has extended free school meal (FSM) support several times and to more groups of children than any other government over the past half a century. As a result, the greatest ever proportion of children are now receiving free lunches. Over one ...
Early day motions
| 15 Apr 2024 | Baha'i, Iran | 9 sig. |
| 8 Jan 2024 | School Meals Coalition | 25 sig. |
| 20 Nov 2023 | 125th anniversary of the University of East London | 4 sig. |
| 7 Nov 2023 | Immigration | 35 sig. |
| 20 Apr 2023 | 10th anniversary of Rana Plaza collapse | 21 sig. |
| 21 Sep 2022 | Conduct of the Right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip | 13 sig. |
Speeches in the chamber
9 Jul 2026 Timms Review: Interim Report
My hon. Friend raises an important and interesting point. Yes, I hope that we will be able to come up with a proposal that will entail greater personalisation. At the moment, for example, the number of different rates of benefit paid out i…
9 Jul 2026 Timms Review: Interim Report
I agree that rehabilitation is very important. Perhaps I should refer my hon. Friend’s point to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who I know will be very interested in it as well. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that wh…
9 Jul 2026 Timms Review: Interim Report
The key first step is to complete this review in co-production with disabled people and disabled people’s organisations, and we will be doing that. Then I think it is a question of people seeing what the new system will be and observing in…
9 Jul 2026 Timms Review: Interim Report
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his invitation. If he would like to drop me a line, I will see how my diary is looking in the next couple of months.
9 Jul 2026 Timms Review: Interim Report
The focus of the review is very tightly on PIP itself. However, as I touched on earlier, I do think that the Department will want to, and will, learn lessons from the success of this approach to date, which I hope will be fully borne out i…
9 Jul 2026 Timms Review: Interim Report
On his final point, as my hon. Friend knows, that proposal was consulted on in the Green Paper last year, and we are looking at that. I think he makes a very good point. I can assure him that we are going to be working across Government on…
9 Jul 2026 Timms Review: Interim Report
Yes, they will. The co-production approach that we have taken so far will be the approach that we take throughout the review. Over the summer, we will be formulating our initial thoughts about conclusions and recommendations and then, in S…
9 Jul 2026 Timms Review: Interim Report
I can give my hon. Friend exactly the assurance that she seeks: this will be a properly and carefully considered piece of work. She is absolutely right that PIP can be claimed by people who are in work or out of work. When we were having t…
9 Jul 2026 Timms Review: Interim Report
I am certainly keen to avoid stigmatising anybody. If my right hon. Friend looks at the interim report, he will see that there is quite a lot of evidence specifically on that point. It is very important that that evidence is properly sifte…
9 Jul 2026 Timms Review: Interim Report
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support for this review. He mentions being contacted by 300 of his constituents; as I mentioned, our call for evidence received 38,000 responses, which I was very pleased about. We are doing furt…
9 Jul 2026 Timms Review: Interim Report
I am grateful to organisations like those that my hon. Friend mentioned—the Trussell Trust and Disability Rights UK—for their support for the interim report. I assure my hon. Friend that the final report will be properly co-produced. It wi…
9 Jul 2026 Timms Review: Interim Report
The right hon. Gentleman is right about the degree of stress involved in the process. I spoke to somebody at a roundtable in Northern Ireland who told me she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the course of her working life, whi…
9 Jul 2026 Timms Review: Interim Report
My hon. Friend is right that we need to ensure that the NHS is delivering on all aspects of its work. There is a big problem with long delays and backlogs in the Access to Work scheme. We have recently announced the recruitment of an addit…
9 Jul 2026 Timms Review: Interim Report
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her help in the discussions and her continuing interest in the review. Criticisms of the way that the current assessment process handles fluctuating conditions are probably the most frequently aired crit…
9 Jul 2026 Timms Review: Interim Report
We certainly do not want to let any opportunities from the review pass; it is a one-off groundbreaking review, and we want to make the most of it. This morning, I had a good conversation with the new Minister in Wales, and we have agreed t…
9 Jul 2026 Timms Review: Interim Report
My hon. Friend raises an extremely important point, which is at the heart of the Keep Britain Working review that Sir Charlie Mayfield is leading at the moment. He produced his report in November, which was directly about what more employe…
9 Jul 2026 Timms Review: Interim Report
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. This benefit is there to contribute to the additional costs of disability. Too often, what has happened—my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) just gave us an example—is that pe…
9 Jul 2026 Timms Review: Interim Report
It is certainly our objective that the dehumanising aspects of the current system—he describes an example very well—should not be a feature of the future system. That is the clear aim of this review. The case to which he refers is not unus…
9 Jul 2026 Timms Review: Interim Report
The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the importance of language. This is a topic that the organisation Turn2us has been thinking about lately. One of the things that I am pleased about is that my job title is Minister for Social Securi…
9 Jul 2026 Timms Review: Interim Report
I am very pleased to be able to pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her amendment. As she rightly says, that was what took us down the road of co-production, which I think has been a very fruitful avenue for the review. Central Government ha…
Source: contributions on parliament.uk.
Full parliamentary career
Government posts
- Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) (Digital Britain) (also HM Treasury) · Department for Business, Innovation and Skills 6 Aug 2009 – 6 May 2010
- Financial Secretary (HM Treasury) (also in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) · HM Treasury 5 Oct 2008 – 6 May 2010
- Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions) (Employment and Welfare Reform) · Department for Work and Pensions 25 Jan 2008 – 5 Oct 2008
- Minister of State (Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform) (Competitiveness) · Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform 2 Jul 2007 – 25 Jan 2008
- Chief Secretary to the Treasury · HM Treasury 5 May 2006 – 28 Jun 2007
- Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions) · Department for Work and Pensions 10 May 2005 – 5 May 2006
- Financial Secretary (HM Treasury) · HM Treasury 30 Sep 2004 – 10 May 2005
- Minister of State (e-Commerce & Competitiveness) · Department of Trade and Industry 29 May 2002 – 9 Sep 2004
- Minister of State (Education and Skills) (Schools) · Department for Education and Skills 11 Jun 2001 – 28 May 2002
- Financial Secretary (HM Treasury) · HM Treasury 29 Jul 1999 – 7 Jun 2001
- Minister of State (Department of Social Security) · Department of Social Security 1 Jan 1999 – 29 Jul 1999
- Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Social Security) · Department of Social Security 28 Jul 1998 – 30 Dec 1998
Opposition posts
- Shadow Minister (Work and Pensions) · Department for Work and Pensions 8 Oct 2010 – 18 Sep 2015
- Shadow Financial Secretary · HM Official Opposition 12 May 2010 – 8 Oct 2010
- Shadow Minister (Digital Britain) · HM Official Opposition 12 May 2010 – 8 Oct 2010
Committee memberships
- Liaison Committee (Commons) 20 May 2020 – 30 May 2024
- Ecclesiastical Committee 4 Mar 2020 – 30 May 2024
- Work and Pensions Committee · Chair 29 Jan 2020 – 30 May 2024
- Space Industry (Indemnities) Bill 1 May 2024 – 8 May 2024
- Offenders (Day of Release from Detention) Bill 1 Feb 2023 – 8 Feb 2023
- Motor Vehicles (Compulsory Insurance) Bill 15 Dec 2021 – 5 Jan 2022
- Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union 11 Sep 2017 – 6 Nov 2019
- Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union 31 Oct 2016 – 3 May 2017
- Education Committee 1 Feb 2016 – 31 Oct 2016
- Education, Skills and the Economy Sub-Committee 1 Feb 2016 – 31 Oct 2016
- Tax Law Rewrite Bills (Joint Committee) 12 Jan 2009 – 6 May 2010
- Public Accounts Committee 18 Oct 2004 – 12 Jul 2005
- Public Accounts Committee 3 Nov 1999 – 11 May 2001
- Treasury Committee 15 Jan 1996 – 21 Mar 1997
- Consolidation etc. Bills (Joint Committee) 27 Jun 1994 – 21 Mar 1997
- Building Societies Act 1986 (Amendment) Bill 1 Jan 1929 – 1 Feb 1929
Previous seats
- East Ham · Elected 4 times 6 May 2010 – 30 May 2024
- East Ham · Elected 3 times 1 May 1997 – 6 May 2010
- Newham North East · Elected 1 time 9 Jun 1994 – 1 May 1997
Expenses
Contact & offices
020 7219 4000
Parliamentary office
House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Constituency office
Constituency office
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about Sir Stephen Timms, answered from official Parliament data.
Who is Sir Stephen Timms?
Sir Stephen Timms is a Member of Parliament representing East Ham in the House of Commons. See Sir Stephen Timms's official Parliament profile.
Which party does Sir Stephen Timms represent?
Sir Stephen Timms sits as Labour. See Sir Stephen Timms's official Parliament profile.
Which constituency does Sir Stephen Timms represent?
Sir Stephen Timms is the Member of Parliament for East Ham. See Sir Stephen Timms's official Parliament profile.
How long has Sir Stephen Timms been an MP?
Sir Stephen Timms has served in the House of Commons for 32 years, 1 month. See Sir Stephen Timms's official Parliament profile.
What registered interests are listed for Sir Stephen Timms?
Sir Stephen Timms has 3 entries in the Register of Members' Financial Interests. See Sir Stephen Timms's official Parliament profile.
Source: this MP's official Parliament profile. Last updated 26 Jul 2026.