Pete Whitelegg

It seems to me these feckless MPs are either unable or unwilling to deal with the underlying issues that give rise to the problem in the first place, or to find an adequate solution.  Essentially this government has simply punted the issue into the long grass. The reforms Starmer wanted to impose on current claimants has been loaded onto new claimants, while those currently on PIP payments will see little change.  What with an ageing population and a failing NHS this won’t be hidden in the long grass for long. It is somewhat indicative of this Government to push issues as far into the future as they can without any clear plan as to how to find a solution. 

The debate, such as it was, about the dramatic increase in these payments never got to grips with the underlying issues. Much talk was of claimants not being able to pull their trousers up or walk a certain distance. Not one MP that I’m aware of made any reference to the increasing number of young/younger people exiting the workplace. Could it be that the very conditions of work itself are creating the conditions for people needing this kind of support. Over the last 30 years we have had an almost endless decline in the value of real wages. Combine that with the increase in debt, particularly student debt, is it any wonder that the pressure gets to people. And then there is work itself. The rise in short term contracts, not just zero hours contracts, has made work precarious. Why would you not prefer the relative certainty of the benefit system?  Like I said, so far, I’ve not heard a Labour MP make the case that the issue, in many cases, is work itself, not the benefits system. The reality is these feckless Labour MPs are determined to push claimants into the very workplaces that cause the problem in the first place. 

Letter to the Editor—Welfare for the young

Eamon Dyas

On the issue of not enough young people entering the work force, my experience recently brought home to me there is a contributing factor that bridges the issues of welfare and work that nobody is talking about.

I recently got talking to a nurse who, among her duties, specialises in the monitoring of diabetes sufferers. We got onto the connection between diet and diabetes and the lethal mixture of ignorance and high octane advertising for ultra-processed foods. She had been working in the field for thirty years and the thing that concerned her was the significant growth of young people she now sees who are morbidly obese and suffering from diabetes. By her account she says that this is something that she has seen increasing gradually over the past twenty years or so and there is no sign of it abating. She also observed that these young people were in no physical state to work and therefore a drain on government funds that sustain the health service.

 We then got on to the question of a local school which one of her grandchildren attended. The school recently changed locations but the new premises did not replicate the Home Economics facilities which the old one possessed so the subject has been taken off the curriculum. She was particularly upset at this as it was among the last schools in the area that taught the subject. She saw this as an example of the shortsightedness of the system as educating young people in things like the connection between food and health was one of the means by which things like diabetes could be avoided and ensure that they did not become a drain on the NHS as a result. 

I’m not sure if that education in itself would be able to counter the effects of heavily advertised junk food industry but I got her point and it may be that a combination of measures that curtail ultra-processed foods and education at an early age would help. So, it was with that conversation in mind that I listened to Starmer’s policy on welfare cuts. I came to the conclusion that his policy had more in common with an accountant’s approach to the subject rather than a healer who could approach the subject holistically.