SIR – Potentially, the most damaging change in the Government’s proposed
planning reforms (report, August 28) is the policy of allowing not just
“alteration” but “replacement” of “all buildings” in the Green Belt.

This invites landowners to erect any kind of agricultural building and then to
declare it redundant and get permission to replace it with a dwelling. This
gives the lie to the claim that “protection will remain in place”.

Clive Scott-Hopkins,
Waltham St Lawrence, Berkshire

SIR – The need to build houses on the Green Belt is exacerbated by the flood
of non-British residents buying second homes in the Britain. It is ironic
that, in a time of financial hardship, non-British residents who cannot vote
should be given generous tax benefits to buy these homes.

Unlike British residents, they are exempt from capital gains tax and are
easily able to avoid inheritance tax. They also benefit from having their
council tax subsidised by the ratepayer.

Leonard Shuter
Sevenoaks, Kent

SIR – The countryside’s vital role is to provide food. At present, we only
supply 60 per cent of what we need, and this amount reduces each year. It
should concern all of us that, in a volatile world, we rely on imported food
to survive.

After the Second World War, subsidies were introduced to encourage farmers to
grow more food, so that we should never again have to rely on imports, but
we continue to do so.

We all value our beautiful countryside, but we should not forget that it
produces the most basic need of mankind.

Patricia Rood
Cannington, Somerset

SIR – As a student architect, I sometimes quoted this verse: “When the
countless millions observed with frowns, / That those who came before had
spoiled the towns, / ‘This will no longer do,’ they cried / And set to work
to spoil the countryside.”

Harold Wilson
Pickering, North Yorkshire

Women need more pre-abortion advice

SIR – Further to your report on pre-abortion counselling for pregnant women
(August 28), as reported in The Sunday Telegraph about 10 years ago, I came
under immense pressure to have my child aborted.

Following my complaint in your paper, the NHS hospital concerned apologised to
me and implemented a training programme for its staff to learn to be more
sympathetic to women who would not consider an abortion under any
circumstances.

Since then, I have attended a conference held by one of Britain’s leading
abortion providers, at which no speaker was prepared to accept any impartial
or anti-abortion view from myself or about fifteen others of those who
attended.

Nadine Dorries’s amendment should be welcomed, and similar rules should surely
apply to NHS obstetric staff also.

Mary Teale
London NW3

Masons in the police

SIR – There is no dilemma or conflict between a police officer’s declaration
to carry out his duties with impartiality, and his sworn obligation as a
freemason (Letters, August 28).

A master mason promises to support and aid a fellow master mason, but with
“murder, treason, felony, and all other offences contrary to the laws of
God, and the Ordinances of the Realm being at all times most especially
excepted”.

Brian W Baldwin
Prestatyn, Denbighshire

SIR – John Kenny suggests that women may not be members of a masonic lodge.
While it is true that men’s lodges do not accept women as members, there is
a thriving women’s freemasonry.

Iain McFalls
Shelley, West Yorkshire

Health service reform

SIR – This week Parliament will either agree to or discard a series of reforms
to our health service, with potentially catastrophic consequences for
patient health. As current and future healthcare professionals, we are
concerned that our health service as we know it will soon be dismantled.

Despite recent amendments, the Health and Social Care Bill remains committed
to widening involvement from commercial healthcare companies. It is proposed
that accountability for services be relinquished by the Secretary of State
and handed to GP commissioning boards, many of which will seek help with
commissioning services from healthcare companies.

The result is likely to be fragmentation, increased and uncontrolled
competition, and a marketised healthcare model that damages cooperation
between healthcare teams. There is insubstantial evidence to support the
need for the reforms. All major trade unions and health organisations,
including the British Medical Association and Royal College of Nursing, are
opposed to them. There is also no mandate for the reforms, which were not
discussed before the general election.

We call on all professionals and members of the public with an interest to
protest openly for a health system run for the public, by the public.

Our best chance of halting the reforms may now stand in the House of Lords.

Dr Jonny Currie
Dr Jacqueline Davis
Dr James Chan
Dr Erica Pool
Guppi Bola
Amelia Cutts
Alex Elliott-Green
Dr Sarah Walpole
Dr Fred Martineau
Danny McLernon Billows
Dr Abi Smith
Dr Sam Bartlett
Dr Timothy Rittman
Dr Chris Tiley
Dr Danni Kirwan
Daniel Bunce
Emily Ward
Marion Birch
Chris Bem
Dr Frank Boulton
Joe Piper
Dr Lucie Potter
Margaret Greenwood
Dr Harriet Burn
Dr Kathryn Boyd
Claire Ferraro
Prof Ian Banks
Dr David Wrigley

Wafer politics

SIR – If Sir Fred Goodwin was displeased to be served a pink wafer biscuit
(report, August 28), he obviously never went to a public school or was
raised by a nanny. Pink wafers are also the standard biscuit favourite among
British Army officers – always the first to disappear from the plate at
coffee and tea breaks.

Perhaps someone should tell him it’s a class thing.

Cherry Tugby
Münster, Germany

Not my cup of tea

SIR – I have not yet tasted Twinings’s new Earl Grey tea. However, may I
suggest that anyone who does not like it switch to another supplier of Earl Grey.
I am reasonably sure the name is not a registered trademark. Indeed, when I
was in the tea and coffee trade, I produced my own Earl Grey which was
purely flavoured with bergamot oil.

Duncan Rayner
Sunningdale, Berkshire

SIR – Earl Grey tea, properly so called, has not been available since the
demise of Jackson’s of Piccadilly, the firm to whom Grey originally gave
permission to use his name.

Twining’s ersatz blend – even in its “original” composition – bears the same
relationship to the real thing as a quartz “clock”, with its absurdly
exaggerated false pendulum swing and tick, does to a Tompion or a Quare.

Robin Dow
Stocksbridge, South Yorkshire

Speed control

SIR – I recently set my cruise control, which I rarely use, at 70mph on a
clear stretch of motorway, but my satnav recorded a constant 65mph.

Which was correct?

Michael Barnes
Bletchingley, Surrey

Human Rights Act protects wrong people

SIR – If Nick Clegg “has warned that his party would not tolerate a watering
down of the human rights legislation” (report, August 28), he must oppose
the deportation of foreign criminals because it would breach their human
rights.

But what about the rights of the general population he was elected to
represent?

Lawrence Clegg
Sapperton, Gloucestershire.

SIR – Banks are advising customers to live within their means and to reduce
their debt.

Will this advice be construed as an infringement of their human rights?

Ralph Bradley
Harrogate, North Yorkshire

Earning state benefits

SIR – People on benefits could be obliged to do a certain number of hours each
week of community work to qualify to continue to receive benefits.

Jobs could include, for instance, helping out in an old people’s home or
helping the gardeners in the parks.

If the millions of unemployed assisted the community in this way, it would
alleviate the stress placed on public services during this time of austerity
and, in the process, many could find that they learn a new skill that could
serve them in the future.

Some people might even find they like the work and apply long term, or find a
job more to their liking. As well as helping the community, it could also
motivate the individuals.

Corina J Poore
London SE14

The road to Amwythig

SIR – The increasing use of Welsh in road signs is unhelpful to visitors.
Towyn is now called Tywyn and Lake Bala is called Llyn Tegid. These may be
their old Welsh names, but they are not generally known by these names so
the change is artificial and unhelpful.

I was amazed to see there is a traffic sign for a place called “Amwythig”.
This is the Welsh for Shrewsbury. How dare the Welsh rename our cities!

Ken Ward
Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire

Choosing one’s words

SIR – D A Clayton (Letters, August 28) asks if everything is now “robust” or
“sustainable”. Of course, anything that falls into neither category is
“iconic”.

Nick Allon
Burnham, Buckinghamshire

SIR – Why is everything “huge”, and why does everyone keep “going forward”?

Joe Akers
Barnard Castle, Co Durham