I NOTE with interest the views of your correspondent Andrew Reid on the principles behind the welfare state (Letters, October 6).

We have heard David Cameron in the past orating about The Big Society, albeit somewhat amorphous in form. He has been more reticent about his vision in recent times. Last month we had Johann Lamont calling for a review of state-funded disbursements essentially on the basis of affordability. I believe that she has come in for much unwarranted criticism from certain quarters in seeking to establish in these straitened times a better understanding of what can be reasonably expended from state coffers. Last week we had David Miliband stepping out at the Labour Party conference with his somewhat skeletal concept of One Nation.

In all this debate we do well to recall the Beveridge Report being the origin of the post-Second World War social reform, which we know as the welfare state. That report described Five Giant Evils within UK society – Squalor, Ignorance, Want, Idleness, and Disease. In all these areas clearly much has been done by way of amelioration. Much, however, remains to be done and accordingly much is still expected of the state through the taxpayer. I would suggest that we bear in mind the words of Churchill in 1943 (albeit he lost favour subsequently with the electorate at the General Election in 1945) when he cautioned against imposing "great new expenditure on the state without any relation to the circumstances which might prevail at the time".

In this context I fear that in a number of areas, such as the indiscriminate availability of free bus passes and winter fuel payments to all over 60, it is a question of trying to lock the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Ian W Thomson,

38 Kirkintilloch Road, Lenzie.

WHEN is a freebie not a freebie? When it has already been paid for through taxation. Charging people for their medicine would be a further tax on people who are ill, and children should be able to go to university without having to worry about the financial consequences for their families.

I can't say I've noticed many OAPs sitting on buses dripping with diamonds and pearls, but most of those pensioners who do use their bus passes, and those who receive "free" personal care, lived through the hard times of the Second World War, many of them either directly serving their country, or with fathers or brothers who fought in the war, and in some cases never came home. People who have made these sacrifices, and have worked all their lives, should be thanked for their contribution, not made to feel that they are on the receiving end of hand-outs and charity.

It is a disgrace that in today's oil-rich Scotland some politicians should be so poverty-stricken in standards, ambitions and ideals that they could even contemplate slapping charges on people who require health care, and on children who aspire to a university education.

Ruth Marr,

99 Grampian Road,

Stirling.