Benefits system should protect, not punish, vulnerable people | Welfare

Frances Ryan underestimates the effect of repeated attacks on benefits claimants and the damage that the potential changes being floated would unleash (As Labour touts more brutal cuts to benefits, how is this different from life under the Tories?, 5 February). As a mental health clinician, I cannot emphasise enough how many relapses have been triggered by the relentless media drumbeat about “cracking down” on benefits. This is not just political rhetoric; it lodges in the psyche, feeding precarity and self-doubt.

When the government frames itself as the defender of the public purse at the expense of “fraudulent” claimants, it makes nearly all claimants feel like frauds. To combine this with the terrifying reality of what these speculative reforms could mean – sanctions for those too unwell to comply with back-to-work schemes, and the appalling prospect of removing or gutting the limited capability for work and work-related activity (LCWRA) group that overwhelmingly consists of people at substantial risk of mental collapse – is unconscionable.

There are countless reforms that could be pursued without targeting society’s most vulnerable, starting with reducing the Department for Work and Pensions’ appalling record of underpayments and wrongful accusations that push claimants into crisis. A system built on trust rather than suspicion would not only cost less but would also reaffirm Labour’s founding values. It’s not too late for it to prove that it still stands for dignity, not destitution – by protecting, not punishing, those who need support the most.
Dr Jay Watts
London

Thank you, Frances Ryan, for highlighting a phrase beloved of our government that deeply troubles me: “working people”. Even worse, “working families”. If you are unable to work by virtue of age, ill health or disability, and have the temerity to be single, you are not a priority. You will also be expected to bear the brunt of the nightmare fiscal inheritance from the last government while wealthy individuals and multinationals remain untroubled by suggestions of tax increases. Many who voted Labour will not do so again, myself included, because we are sickened by the expansion of gross inequality between the poorest and most vulnerable and the super-rich.
Stephanie O’Brien
London