When Sir Keir Starmer describes the welfare system as “unsustainable, indefensible, and unfair” he’s correct — but not for the reasons he thinks (Report, FT.com, March 16).
Despite there being more people who need work than jobs available, British unemployment benefit is the lowest in northern Europe. Indeed it spends less as a proportion of GDP than any OECD country barring one, Chile.
The rate is set at a level (£393 a month for over 25s) designed to force people into work that very often does not exist.
For people surviving on such low incomes for months or years on end, it is no surprise that physical and mental ill health has increased. And contrary to the claims about the generosity of our sickness and disability benefits, the system already fails applicants, with blind people and cancer sufferers having been told they are capable of looking for work or are insufficiently ill to claim benefits.
The only area of welfare spending where Britain is generous is in housing benefit — the reason being it’s a public subsidy to landlords and the banks they have borrowed from.
This is indeed unfair, indefensible and unsustainable.
Trevor Worthing
Manchester, UK
