Government policies should be judged by their effect on the life satisfaction of the population, not by economic growth alone, says Prof Richard Layard. Plus letters from Sarah Davidson and Ethan Oshoko

Your editorial rightly points out that GDP is not a good measure of how people are faring (19 June). As an alternative, you offer the UN’s human development index. But we already have a better British alternative – the measure of life satisfaction in the Office for National Statistics’ annual population survey.

The question asked is: “Overall, how satisfied are you with your life these days (0: not at all satisfied, 10: completely)?” The results are published every quarter. That is an excellent measure of the nation’s success. It provides a good account of how we are doing on average and of the degree of fundamental inequality in our society.