The government's council tax freeze (£650m subsidy allows council tax to be frozen, 24 March) has been achieved by top-slicing the grant that would otherwise have gone to maintain council services. A freeze builds up financial trouble for the future and saves most households much less than the 2.5% permanent VAT increase will cost them. And no one had the opportunity to vote in a referendum on that increase, as Eric Pickles proposes in relation to council tax increases which he deems excessive.
Jeremy Beecham
Labour local government spokesman, House of Lords
• There would be some benefits in combining the parallel systems of income tax and national insurance. But if the government is looking for transparency, why not keep the two systems, but ringfence the NI revenue raised and use it solely to provide unemployment, sickness and retirement benefits?
Chris Parkins
Stanmore, Middlesex
• Eamonn Butler (24 March) sums up all that has been going wrong with our economy and its consequences for our society: get rid of higher taxes for those most able to afford to pay, and whose incomes have risen faster than the average for the last 30 years; get rid of all employment regulation (by which he meant, but did not say, the minimum wage) so the poorest will be poorer still. Osborne is pursuing the same objectives.
David Humphrey
London
• So oil producers will not be able to pass on the extra cost of the tax to consumers because competition will keep down prices (Osborne). Hasn't worked so far, has it?
Maurice Clift
Crawley, West Sussex
• People in rural areas are again bleating about the cost of fuel – it is all nonsense. All adverts for cars show fuel costs for urban and rural mileage. Consumption for rural mileage is very often a third less than urban so that, to equalise the cost, rural fuel prices would have to be a third higher than in urban areas to create equal fuel costs. If people live in rural areas to escape the hustle of urban life, they should bear the cost.
Eric Youd
Oldham
• It is suggested the cut in fuel duty by 1p will result in a cut of the cost at the pumps of 1p. Given the price per litre varies from garage to garage, how will we know it has happened?
Tom Swallow
Kenilworth, Warwickshire
• Can all those who think George Osborne even knows what a Ford Focus looks like take one step forward?
Stuart Gallagher
Harpenden, Hertfordshire