Letter: Obliging the unemployed to train without obliging society to provide them with jobs

Sir: John Major wants to get the unemployed back into some kind of work (report, 5 February), but he knows as well as anyone that even the most limited workfare scheme would be massively expensive, and would involve direction of labour unparalleled since the end of National Service.

However, there is a way forward. Among the mass of controls he also wishes to destroy is the benefits earnings rule, which acts as the most effective disincentive to the unemployed who have the opportunity to earn money from part-time or short-term jobs. What John Major should do is to modify the rule so that those who are receiving benefits may earn up to, say, pounds 60 a week without losing benefit.

If, at the same time, benefits were to be included as taxable income, then those gaining employment in this way would become payers of tax and thus would contribute to the costs of their own benefit.

In this way, more of the unemployed would be encouraged to keep in contact with the world of work, would contribute to a more buoyant economy, and would reduce the net cost to the Treasury of the benefit system. They would undoubtedly create more jobs.

Yours sincerely,

RON SONNET

Southsea,

Hampshire

5 February