Sir Stephen Timms has been Labour MP for East Ham since 1994 and is Minister of State for Social Security and Disability. Born in Oldham in July 1955 and educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he spent 15 years in the telecommunications industry at Logica and then Ovum, and served ten years as a Newham councillor, four of them as council leader. He is also the Labour Party's Faith Envoy.

His ministerial record under Blair and Brown was unusually extensive: ten ministerial roles across three departments, including Financial Secretary to the Treasury twice, Chief Secretary to the Treasury (2006-2007), and Ministers of State for Schools, Pensions, and Employment and Welfare Reform. It is one of the deepest junior and middle-ranking ministerial careers of the Blair-Brown era.

On 14 May 2010 Roshonara Choudhry stabbed him twice in the abdomen at a constituency surgery in Beckton, motivated by his vote for the Iraq War and radicalised by online jihadist material; she was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to life with a minimum of 15 years. It was the first jihadist assassination attempt on a sitting British MP, and he returned to serve.

He chaired the Work and Pensions Committee from 2020 to 2024, succeeding Frank Field, before being appointed Minister of State for Social Security and Disability at the DWP in July 2024, a brief that maps directly onto that committee expertise and to which he has made 360 debate contributions. He has voted in 375 divisions with no whipped rebellions. In 2024 he was re-elected with a majority of 12,863 (33.9 percent), reduced from past landslides but still one of the largest in the country.

Timms's strengths include an Emmanuel College Cambridge education, 15 years in telecommunications, ten years as a Newham councillor and four as leader, ten ministerial roles across the Blair-Brown era including Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the Work and Pensions Committee chair, a Minister of State brief matching that expertise, the role of Labour's Faith Envoy, surviving an assassination attempt and continuing to serve, and a 33.9 percent majority. His weaknesses include no signature legislative reform despite 30 years, the social security and disability brief being constrained by Treasury spending limits, his age, and the permanent gap between welfare reform promises and delivery. At 70, with 30 years in Parliament, ten ministerial roles, the assassination survival, and the committee to minister transition, he is one of the most experienced ministers in government. Whether the Social Security and Disability brief produces reform that claimants actually experience is the only question that matters at this stage.