FULL marks to the Archbishop of Canterbury and 43 bishops for recognising that planned changes to the benefits system, which would cap rises in welfare payments to 1% for the next three years, would mean families who were already battling to make ends meet paying a large price.

The benefits cap is one of several measures that will not only place more children in poverty, they also create uncertainty and upheaval by subjecting some families to the Bedroom Tax.

They hit low paid workers by imposing a cut in Council Tax Benefit that has to be absorbed by the poorest families.

On top of all that is an end to Universal Child Benefit which experts have calculated mean some families with three young children could lose out on £50,000 in the lifetime of a child.

I find it strange that our local Conservative MP Jason McCartney attends many a church fete or school show without ever mentioning that he voted for all theses measures at the same time as supporting tax cuts for those earning over £1m a year.

Perhaps next time he stands up in Parliament he could ask the questions that really matter.

How many more children in your constituency will end up living in poverty because of your actions Mr McCartney? How many families are worrying about the implications of the Bedroom Tax or finding their child benefit has been cut? Colne Valley constituents deserve some real answers.

Anne Baldwin

Holmfirth

Time to privatise

I AM writing in total support of Michael Hutchinson’s letter in the Examiner on Wednesday, February 27.

What so many people don’t understand is that there are even more cuts to the Government grants given to all local councils next year.

One wonders when and how all this austerity will end.

We have petrol and diesel fuel going up along with gas and electricity yet our wages, pensions etc are not rising to cover the costs.

We are told gas and electricity bills need to rise due to the wholesale cost of gas and that the gas infrastructure needs replacing, the cost of which has to be passed on to the taxpayer. Why, I don’t know with all the profits they are making. But that is capitalism for you.

We hear from all parties that competition is healthy and is good for keeping prices down. Let’s be honest the big boys don’t want competition. They don’t like it as it eats into their profits.

I personally would like to see the whole of our water and energy sectors nationalised or whatever politically correct term one would use these days.

The Government doesn’t seem to appreciate that people like us live in the real world.

We have worked hard all of our lives, paid our taxes, have our pensions and are still getting taxed on our pensions, yet again. Pensions hardly rise at all but the cost of energy certainly does.

Surely it is our human right to have safe drinking water and heat so we don’t die of hypothermia and energy to cook on that is a reasonable affordable price for all. Especially for those people on low a incomes and the ones that only have a state pension.

This and previous Governments have lost their way. There is never any long-term strategy any more – it’s always short term fixes. Water, gas, and electricity should all be re-nationalised as everyone needs these amenities to live.

If they were taken into the state sector they could be run as individual companies making a profit, but with all the profits ploughed back into the industries.

The problem would be this Government would not like to buy back all these companies as most are owned by French, German, Chinese and American bosses.

It would mean standing up to all these plus the dreaded European Parliament in Brussels. Too much hassle!

So am I correct in saying all these energy companies and water companies in the United Kingdom are in truth attacking our human rights by pricing their commodities out of our reach!

All I ask and many other people too is for our politicians to listen to the concerns of us ordinary folk. After listening, then our local MPs should stand up in the house and battle for our rights, not do what he or she believes or what the whips of the Government of the day say.

They are there to represent us, the people. When they realise that it may just be too late for us all!

Keith Bagot

Honley

Praise for hospital

I WOULD like to write this letter to praise the staff at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.

My mum was recently admitted via Accident and Emergency and was treated with utmost respect and dignity at all times, from being picked up by the ambulance crew to the treatment she was given.

Everyone was excellent, in particular Will Lake, the male staff nurse who administered intravenous antibiotics and also took her blood for various tests.

He was cheerful in his work and very professional and talked my mum through all the procedures he was performing and why he was doing them. This put my mum at ease.

I would also like to thank Dr Mohammed Narwaz who treated my mum and Julie Dean, matron in A&E and the wonderful ambulance crew.

They all do a wonderful job.

HEATHER GARNER

Almondbury

Keeping promises

COLNE Valley MP Jason McCartney (Examiner, March 8) raised some interesting points about how developers do not always come up with the promised money to improve the areas they build in.

In relation to the changing rooms at Reinwood, however, the fault for the lack of spending on them is down to Kirklees Council.

The Salvation Army paid well over the odds for the land in return for a promised upgrade of the council-owned property.

Unfortunately, the money was absorbed into the general coffers of the council.

The upgrade was estimated at £312,000 by the council, three times what the Salvation Army paid for the land to build their headquarters.

This was a council decision and shows that it is not only builders that do not keep their promises.

Bernard MCGUIN

Marsh

Horse meat fraud

THE health aspect of eating horse meat is not the issue – the issue is fraud.

It is the same as a pub landlord trying to justify watering down his beer by saying “it won’t harm you, we’ve been drinking it for years.”

There has been, and no doubt still is a criminal element making huge amounts of money from this. Let us hope it’s only horse meat they’ve been putting in.

Allen Jenkinson

Milnsbridge