• D WARD complains about the deterioration in the welfare state devised by William Beveridge during World War II, (How far the country has regressed since Beveridge, October 3).

The functioning of the welfare state has certainly changed but not in the direction many suppose. The obvious retort to any such scheme would be who pays for it?

Beveridge was well aware of that and his plan was not one of free handouts for the needy but as an insurance system.

If you did not pay the insurance premia from your wages, no payout. At a time of full employment that meant few would fall through the cracks.

Even so, Winston Churchill thought it would be too expensive and Beveridge’s plan was published by the government in 1942 not as the expected state project but as his ideas.

For better or worse, the current welfare state is one of universal provision and it seems to be reaching its practical limits, especially in view of the productivity slow-down.

Labour has cut back on what was really an addition to the “old”, very low, state pension, paid for by contributions, in the form of the winter fuel payment.

Probably the worst policy change in decades, saving almost no money, yet damaging huge numbers of people and without addressing the massive overall problem of funding a welfare state no longer based on the contributions of the insured who claim.

Halting the march of politicians’ competitive vanity projects like High Speed 2 (my one is bigger than yours) would fill the funding gap for a while.

No one, it seems, wants to get elected to perform mundane management and leave no exciting legacy of personal appearances to cut ribbons.

MICHAEL NEWLAND, NW5