Letters to The National: The new welfare system still leaves disabled and ill out in the cold

This is not quite accurate: Employment and Support Allowance, the main, out-of-work benefit for sick and disabled people, will continue to be a reserved benefit, along with Jobseeker’s Allowance.

Those found unfit for work but expected to work some time in the future will continue to be placed in the ESA Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) and will continue to be subject to sanctions.

Research carried out by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that around 60 per cent of those in this group who are sanctioned have learning difficulties or mental health issues.

In addition, from 2017 new claimants placed in the WRAG will receive the same amount of benefit as Jobseeker’s Allowance, meaning a £30 cut.

There hasn’t been anything like the furore surrounding the proposed tax-credit cuts, despite the fact that some of those affected by the WRAG cut will be people who are suffering from serious health problems such as terminal illness, degenerative conditions such as Motor Neurone Disease, severe and enduring mental health issues, etc.

As if all this wasn’t bad enough, Iain Duncan Smith has recently stated that his department intends to reduce the number of ESA claimants by 1 million.

In short, sick and disabled people of working age in Scotland will continue to be very much under the Tory cosh.

Mo Maclean
Glasgow

INSIDE the door of 10 Downing Street there is a debating chamber where Prime Minister Cameron and his cabinet ministers (every one a millionaire) meet to plan further austerity measures.

This Christmas, as a result of their agreed policies, there will be more people homeless, more children living in poverty, more disabled and unemployed people living in fear of being forced into rigged unfit-for-purpose work capability assessments and more people awaiting eviction for being unable to pay their bedroom tax. Let us all not forget the women and children in Syria awaiting death every night delivered from UK war planes.

Yet outside that same door stands a massive Christmas tree. Why?

Chas McArdle
Lanarkshire

I HAVE always been amazed that the price of The National was set as low as 50p and has been maintained at that.

Unlike the big organisations which cross-subsidise to be able to offer their propaganda sheets at low cost, you have had to make the paper meet its costs.

I am excited by the proposals for enhancing the newspaper. Providing space for Scottish history and cultural evolution are essential.

I welcome, too, the increased business section, because the economic argument was probably the major factor in the referendum defeat.

The argument for Yes had significant business support, but the general public were given little inkling of this by other media, who used apocalyptic lies by the banks and Waitrose for example, to prove that we would be “Doomed, dooooooomed!”

We have a much better educated population (because comprehensive schools have been so effective) and people can comprehend and reflect on nuanced issues. Allowing more space for public discourse is to be welcomed. When we look beyond the trolls, there is an awful lot of good debate out there, though the mainstream media have been portraying them as “cybernats” and !anti-war pacifist death threateners”.

Alasdair Macdonald
Glasgow

WHATEVER next – 10p extra for The National?! I’ll tell you what: I would pay 50p extra for this great little paper. Looking forward to the bigger edition – wonderful.

Happy National Reader
Address supplied

I HAVE been a subscriber since day one and always considered it a steal at 50p so with the extra bark of the Wee Ginger Dug and additional features, I consider it well worth 60p.

You continue to be the only newspaper I read every day. Kind regards to all at The National and lang may your lum reek.

Mary Sutherland
Edinburgh

THE article yesterday on teacher numbers reports on the rather bizarre claim from Cosla (the body which represents Scotland’s councils) that the EIS is “too close”’ to the Scottish Government because we have consistently argued for the protection of teacher numbers, and thereby teachers’ jobs (Teachers’ union policies are now too close to Holyrood, The National, December 14).

Given that the EIS is Scotland’s largest teaching union, it should not be surprising to anyone – except, apparently, COSLA – that we would argue in the best interests of Scotland’s teachers, the Scottish education system and the pupils that we serve. Where Scottish Government education policy is aligned with EIS policy, as it is in the case of teacher numbers, then of course we will be supportive of that policy.

In your article, the COSLA spokesperson also claims that the EIS should be “ashamed” of its defence of teacher numbers – the opposite would be true. Defending teachers’ jobs and protecting the interests of Scottish education are core functions of the EIS, and we make no apology for fulfilling those functions to the best of our abilities. In any case, the EIS has not actually argued for any money to be clawed back from councils – we simply state that the recurring £41 million allocated to maintain teacher numbers should be ring-fenced moving forward.

As to the additional £10 million made available this year – this money has not yet been paid out by the Scottish Government. As 10 councils failed to reach the target which they agreed to, they are not in line to receive a share of the additional money. Our view is that rather than the unspent funds reverting to the Scottish Government, the full £10 million should still go to those councils which maintained or surpassed their agreed figures.

In an attempt to move the debate forward, the EIS has advocated a more structured approach to teacher numbers in the shape of a national minimum staffing standard – this is supported by the Association of Directors of Education and has the interest of Scottish Government. Perhaps COSLA should give it some consideration?

Larry Flanagan, General Secretary,
Educational Institute Of Scotland

I HAVE great respect for Catriona Grigg’s view (The National, Letters, December 14) that we can disagree while still treating each other as civilised beings. There lies hope, surely. I also applaud her forbearance and fortitude in spending 50 years as the sole woman bearing the brunt of workplace chauvinism.

My mother spent the war at Kelvin Hall building barrage balloons, and then by working a 60-hour-week at Hillington making spiral gears for Spitfires. As a union representative she once gave a man short shrift for uttering an expletive in her company. Were she, a churchgoer, to encounter anyone telling women, as Tyson Fury has, that they belong “in the kitchen” or “on their backs”, she would have put him, scripturally and literally, in his place.

In world where scripture is appropriated daily for malevolent ends, extreme care is needed. I may disagree with the idea that somehow there’s “harmless chauvinism” (“show”-vanism), but however much we stay inclusive about who’s in the body o’ the kirk (a kirk with female meenisters, remember), perhaps some should be shown the door, not just a highly public cutty-stool.

Alex MacMillan
Dunbar

Letters: Given his record, can we trust David Cameron on Paris?