JIM TAGUE'S letter to HAS (Nov 17) suggest that he has more time on his hands than I have to research the fine details of issues which arise.

However he also needs to state the major facts as well.

His most recent letter omits the fact that David Cameron found it necessary to deny that what Lord Freud said represents the view of the Government. Have both Mr Cameron and myself been deceived by this issue?

On the subject of the welfare system, Mr Tague writes that individual cases will slip through the net. Unfortunately, with the sanctioning of benefits, there have been a lot of those individual cases.

I'm not referring to people who are able to attend Jobcentre appointments, but don't make the effort to do so.

People have had their benefits sanctioned for attending a job interview which clashed with a Jobcentre appointment, and for not applying for a job that they can do which was advertised in a different newspaper to the one which they read.

The Government could make changes so that the wrong people are not penalised, however, as with bail bandits in the early 1990s, they fail to act.

Jeremy Whiting, Chester-le-Street.