THE Government is planning to remove the barriers for house swaps in social housing across local authority boundaries.

On the face of it, this would be very encouraging for the longterm unemployed.

The idea is the long-term unemployed can more easily move their families south to find work.

But where exactly is this social housing they are going to swap into? Aren’t there unemployed people in London as well?

Everyone wants the workforce to be mobile for the sake of the economy.

Wouldn’t it just be a lot cheaper and simpler to give the long-term unemployed heavily subsidised rail season tickets which allow them to get to London from Nottingham, Derby and Doncaster at affordable prices early in the morning?

I can get to Brighton before 9am in the morning by rail from Darlington if I set off early enough on the same day.

Wouldn’t this do more to address unemployment in Yorkshire and the North-East than telling whole families they must swap homes with London pensioners?

And who, exactly, is going to give Londoners their marching orders and tell them they have to give up their homes, downsize or move north to make way for the massed ranks of the young fit northern unemployed?

We can’t all live in London and the South-East.

Nigel Boddy, Darlington.