Benefit reform must avoid blunt instruments

SIR – I am very grateful to be receiving the Personal Independence Payment (PIP). It helps me immensely in coping with my long-term, fluctuating neurological (and physically disabling) condition.

I have to pace all my daily activities. My PIP supports this, providing me, for example, with my Blue Badge, which allows me to park close to where I need to go and in an accessible space with room to open the car door. The payment contributes to a host of services and gadgets that enable me to remain independent and include my weekly cleaning lady, a variety of mobility and assistance devices, my online supermarket delivery pass, and so on.

Replacing the payment with a voucher system (Letters, April 30) would not work because of the range of items and services required, and also because when and how I use them depends on the severity of my symptoms at any given time.

It has been hard enough to go through the rigorous assessment process, with its depressing focus on what I can no longer do; but to have to navigate a voucher system just seems cruel and vindictive. Susan Hardy

Hitchin, Hertfordshire

SIR – I am sure that out-of-work young people with mental health problems will welcome being made to feel like the proverbial rubbish that Isabel Oakeshott wishes to see cleared up (“Get benefits claimants back to work – cleaning our filthy streets”, Comment, April 30).

Perhaps it would be more helpful if people of Ms Oakeshott’s generation treated young people with respect and recognised their potential, instead of imagining them as labour to clean up others’ mess. Theo Morgan

London W9

SIR – I agree with Isabel Oakeshott.

Unemployment benefit should be renamed community service benefit. In order to receive it, you should do clean-up jobs in your area, as organised by the council. Keith Jacques

Stafford