SIR – David Stewart (Letters, April 28) says we need to scrap our benefits system, to throw people off benefits and back in to work. If not, then we cannot complain about immigrants taking jobs here. First off, Mr Stewart is factually wrong. There obviously are people who do sponge off benefits, but most unemployed people are desperate to earn a living, and to say otherwise is a gross insult to them.

The problem is, the availability of cheap foreign labour allows employers to keep wages low, too low to be a living wage. The economy does not, as Mr Stewart says, ‘rely’ on foreign workers. Far from it. The economy is being wrecked by immigrants who keep wage levels low and unemployment high. Why would people train for a career in, say, catering, building, or plumbing, when they know they are going to be undercut by foreign workers?

We should be providing British jobs for British workers, at a decent income level. Mass immigration makes that aim impossible to achieve.

Steve Davis
Worcester