Use Gift Aid to help those in need

REGARDING the suggestion of Iain Duncan Smith (Yorkshire Post, April 29) that “rich” people might give their Christmas bonuses and winter fuel allowances back to the Government, I believe that I have a better suggestion.

If the “rich” people who are so minded wish to ensure the beneficial use of their Christmas bonuses they could consider making a Gift Aid donation to a charity of their choice, where it would be employed more effectively after having its value increased by 25 per cent by HMRC.

The charity would supply the necessary form.

My late father-in-law donated his Christmas bonus, originally £10, to charity right from its inception several decades ago, and my own goes to a local church. We did not and do not fit the description of rich, but merely fortunate enough not to miss what we might never have had.

From: Tom Howley, Wetherby.

IAIN Duncan Smith urges all “wealthy” pensioners to relinquish their benefits. I suggest that we tell Mr Duncan Smith that we have paid for our pensions, television licences, fuel allowances and free bus passes over a lifetime of work and that he has a brass neck to ask us to give them up.

The basic UK state pension is valued at £5,837 a year. Some pensioners will have been fortunate to have contributed to a former employer’s scheme and receive benefit.

Others will have paid into the Government Serps arrangement to provide a necessary top-up to the miserly pension provided by successive governments.

Details of benefits paid in other countries are available and show that the UK pension is more only than that of Japan, Greece and South Africa.

Top of the list is Spain with a maximum earnings-related pension of over £26,000, Germany follows close behind, France pays its retired workers £15,811, Australia £12,640 and Ireland £10,415. Most of these countries provide other benefits, including free public travel passes.

The majority of British retired workers have struggled to 
make ends meet over their working lives, they deserve an even more generous pension 
for their sacrifices and Mr Duncan Smith should be proud of their efforts and be seeking to improve their circumstances not attack them.

From: Tim Mickleburgh, Boulevard Avenue, Grimsby.

THE perks such as the winter fuel allowance, free bus passes and the like were never really thought through before they were introduced by the last Labour government.

As things stand people can still receive such entitlements even though they are in full-time work, while those not within distance of a bus service hardly gain from subsidised travel, even if they are in the most need of it. That applies to many over 65 I know living in a disadvantaged part of Grimsby, who as a result are forced to use taxis all the time – hardly ideal on cost grounds alone.

What the Government should have done was simply use this extra cash on increasing the basic old age pension. It would have then been up to people themselves what they could use it for. Also, it would have meant the money would be taxed if the better-off retirees had sufficient private income. So we’d not be having the debate on means testing.

Mud slinging by the Tories

From: David W Wright, Uppleby, Easingwold, North Yorkshire.

IT is of no surprise to hear of the mud-slinging from the Conservatives in their latest attempt to discredit Ukip in the run up to the local council elections.

It is obvious that David Cameron and his cronies are worried about losing support and votes to Ukip in view of the Conservatives’ lame and indecisive policies plus their weak promises to control immigration, to deal with the abuse of the Human Rights fiasco and the dire need for positive direction on leaving the EU.

Peter Munce and Bill Carmichael (Yorkshire Post, 
April 26) have rightly highlighted the problems faced by Cameron and his apparent unwillingness to get to grips with the UK’s immediate problems, which are not helped by the fragile and unsatisfactory coalition with the Lib Dems.

From: Peter Hyde, Driffield, East Yorkshire.

KEN Clarke calling Ukip “clowns”is the joke of the century (Yorkshire Post, April 29).

He dumbed down the justice system to the point where crime actually pays. Cautions and warnings instead of real penalties means that shoplifting and the like are becoming lucrative occupations to the loss of we customers because at the end of the day the customer pays the bill. He is reduced to mocking Ukip because he is running scared of the fact that they say what people think.