Tories steal last shred of dignity

While I’m glad a freephone line is to be available for unpaid Universal Credit claimants in future, doesn’t Work and Pensions Secretary David Gauke realise that being forced to use a foodbank is not only a matter of being too poor to eat, it’s also degrading?

People who need benefits to give them sufficient to live on are human beings. Because they are human beings, they have basic rights to food, shelter and dignity.

It doesn’t mean getting access to things if we deserve them, if we take the right actions, wait the proper amount of time, prove we cannot work or that we are actively seeking a job.

If the minister can’t guarantee that moving to Universal Credit will not deprive anyon e of their universal human rights, then he has no business in implementing the scheme.

Opinions may differ, but I do not think he has any business remaining a minister either.

Janet Mather, Manchester

What more proof does the nation need about the Tories when they disrespect democracy and the people of our nation by abstaining from voting on the deeply unpopular Universal Credit. This flagship policy is plunging ordinary people into abject poverty and, in some cases, eviction, as they have to wait six to 10 weeks for payment and are having to rely on foodbanks to get by. This policy has been fraught with disaster from day one and has cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds in failed IT systems alone.

You just have to look at its creator, Iain Duncan Smith – a failed Tory leader and the man who gave us the Bedroom Tax – to see that the Tories don’t care about ordinary people by pursuing this unpopular policy.

Brian Scully, Wigan

Anyone hoping MPs will stop the roll-out of Universal Credit is wasting their time. Benefits staff raised concerns it was unworkable from the start, but it was a flagship policy from Iain Duncan Smith, so concerns were dismissed.

Maybe ‘Calamity May’ should help operate the phonelines for a week and talk to people threatening suicide because they are living on fresh air.

A change of Government is our only hope.

M Dougan Newcastle

I claim Universal Credit and receive just enough to cover my bills. In fact, my children help me out as there isn’t anything left to buy food and other household items.

As a middle-aged woman, this is highly embarrassing, and unfair on my family and friends.

Name and address supplied

Have the Tories been watching reruns of Yes Minister? Who would put a charge on skint people ringing up the hotline for a flawed benefit system, then remove the charge, thinking that people would thank them and vote for them?

Barry Hampson, Wigan

This Government doesn’t get that Universal Credit is just not working. All it’s done is put thousands of people into serious debt. The Tories simply don’t know what it’s like to live on a week-by-week basis as they are all rich.

Jean Whisson, Blyth Northumberland

This Tory Government doesn’t care one iota about any hardships the loss of benefits may cause. To them, claimants are an irrelevance.

Paul Green Wolverhampton