Time warp
Sir: It is hard to believe that David Willetts read Losing Out before writing his review (Books, 18 November). The book does deal with the question of welfare de- pendency. The number so dependent has more than doubled in the last ten years. That is a direct result of the Government's targeting policy, i.e. of extending help on a basis of a means test. It does not say that Mrs Thatcher set out deliberately to create an underclass. It carefully plots all the different moves the Government has made which has resulted in this phenomena
occurring.
The book does give credit to the Gov- ernment's economic achievements though they do look a little more battered now than when the book went to press. During the past eight years we have experienced the fastest ever period of economic growth. Yet during this period the living standards of the very poorest fell. It has been this fail in living standards which has triggered off a widening of class differences.
It is David Willetts, not I, who is caught in an intellectual time warp. For most of the underclass — those long-term unem- ployed and many single mothers — I discuss creating employment opportunities as their route back into mainstream prosperity. While the 1980s were shaped by the radical Right, David Willetts's review suggests that this group is not going to have much to add to the development of policy in the 1990s.
Frank Field
House of Commons, London SW1
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