Letters: Soaring salaries for senior civil servants are insulting to the taxpayer

SIR – You report (August 9) that the number of civil servants paid more than £100,000 a year has nearly doubled in the past seven years, and the total number on the payroll has gone up by a quarter. Many are paid more than the Prime Minister. 

They will all retire on hugely generous, risk-free pensions paid out of taxation, and many will retire in their fifties without a penalty to those pensions – no doubt increasing the reliance on expensive external consultants to replace them.

The joke is on the taxpayer. As for them being “servants” – the title must be dropped. 

Bill Parish
Bromley, Kent

SIR – Little did I know when I was enjoying Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister all those years ago that I was watching a documentary series about the Civil Service, not a comedy.

Ian Carter
Lytham St Annes, Lancashire

SIR – Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg and other MPs complain that the Civil Service grows like Topsy (report, August 9). But can they really point the finger? 

Not so long ago an MP would have had just a secretary. Now they have research assistants and chiefs of staff – all taxpayer-funded.

Michael Wilson
Southampton

SIR – Kevin Liles’s suggestion of a board instead of a Cabinet (Letters, August 9) has some merit. 

A prime minister would be free to appoint qualified people who know what they are doing, as opposed to the inexperienced and largely talentless group-thinkers who have run the country for the past 20 years. This is the method used in the United States.

Dr Andy Dyson
Newark, Nottinghamshire

SIR – Kevin Liles’s plea for a “coalition of talent” dismally fails the Tony Benn test: “And how can we get rid of you? If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.” 

Yes, of course our government should employ people with specialist knowledge, but elected politicians have to remain in charge of spending our money or the next election becomes meaningless. I’d much rather stick with democracy than be governed by “nanny knows best”.

Michael Keene
Winchester, Hampshire

SIR – I was involved in a large council housebuilding programme when Margaret Thatcher introduced the right-to-buy policy. 

Hugh Marsden (“Local authorities’ role in the housing shortage”, Letters, August 8) should note that this policy forbade the councils from using most of the subsequent income on replacement affordable housing. Hard to believe, isn’t it?

Jim Stringer
Paignton, Devon
 

Inheritance grab

SIR – If I hear the Treasury trot out its standard line again that “more than 93 per cent of estates will have no inheritance tax liability in the coming years” (report, July 30), I will scream.

What about the fact that the number of estates paying it has doubled in a decade? What about the forecast that between now and 2033, 533,220 families will be dragged into paying inheritance tax? What about the cliff-edge 40 per cent rate – a massive state grab of personal assets that have often been accumulated through careful saving and planning?

If you put a penny on income tax, it is so gradual that most earners do not feel it. If, as with IHT, you take a chunk of capital in one go, it can hurt terribly. 

Add in that the system is so fiendishly complicated, and it’s miserable for retired people like me, who are worrying daily about what to do.

Lauren Groom
Salisbury, Wiltshire
 

Heat pump efficiency

SIR – We built our house with good insulation, triple glazing and an air-source heat pump (Letters, August 9) supplying underfloor heating and hot water. I was very surprised, therefore, to see that our EPC rating is a B, not an A. Everything was rated good or very good apart from our heat pump and hot-water system, which were both rated poor.

When I looked at the ratings for other properties, gas boilers get an EPC rating of good. This suggests that to improve our rating, we ought to replace our heat pump with a gas boiler. However, when I sought recommendations to improve our energy efficiency to an A, they were:

First, solar water heating: typical cost £4,000-6,000; typical saving £80 per annum; 62.5 years to recoup cost. Secondly, solar voltaic panels: typical cost £5,000-8,000; typical saving £282 per annum; 23 years to recoup cost. Thirdly, a wind turbine: typical cost £15,000-25,000; typical saving £552 per annum; 36 years to recoup cost. These options are simply not viable for our house – let alone cost-effective. 

Why is the Government aiming to increase the number of heat pump installations from 55,000 a year in 2021 to 600,000 a year by 2028 if by doing so it is reducing the energy efficiency of the housing stock, while suggesting such impractical alternatives?

Gill Clough
Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire

SIR – You report (August 8) that Greenpeace has been barred from Whitehall talks after its stunt at the Prime Minister’s home.

The Good Friday Agreement came about because both Conservative and Labour governments continued talking with Sinn Fein during the Troubles. I do not condone Greenpeace’s actions, but the issue of climate change will not be dealt with by excluding key stakeholders from the process of continued dialogue.

Gerard Friel
Twickenham, Middlesex
 

Stepping out online

SIR – As a London taxi driver for more than 20 years, I can confirm the truth of the research done by the University of New South Wales: typing on a mobile phone while crossing the road is dangerous (report, August 8). 

People are not able to do both simultaneously safely. If I see somebody using a mobile, I increase my awareness and would put money on the likelihood of them stepping out in front of me without looking.

William Burt 
Cobham, Surrey 
 

Banking in person

SIR – A few months ago my five-year ISA bond with Halifax was due to mature. As it was only earning 2.5 per cent, I decided to withdraw the money and re-invest elsewhere at 4.8 per cent.

When I downloaded the maturity instructions, I discovered that if I wanted to re-invest with Halifax, and/or withdraw part of the money, then I could do so online (Letters, August 8). But if I wanted to withdraw all of the money and close the account, then I had to go into my local Halifax (over four miles away) with my passport and do so in person.

When I presented myself, the staff didn’t believe my explanation until I showed them the instructions on the maturity form. Presumably this need to appear in person is sufficient to put people off closing their accounts.

Keith Appleyard
West Wickham, Kent

SIR – Your correspondent who asserts that all banking can be done online (Letters, August 8) is obviously not a church treasurer. 

For years we have counted the Sunday collection for our Methodist church and paid it in over the counter at our HSBC branch. However, it no longer has a counter and instead relies on machines, which do not allow you to pay in coins. So we take our collection to the post office, where we can pay in cheques and notes but only whole bags of coins. This means that the amount paid in never tallies with the amount collected, and causes extra aggravation for our already overworked volunteer treasurer.

I’m sure there are businesses that are equally inconvenienced. That’s progress for you.

Amanda Hume
Sutton Coldfield
 

Trust stamped out

SIR – Regarding problems with postage stamps (Letters, August 7), I had a lot of the old second-class stamps, which I sent to be exchanged for new ones. 

In return, I received the equivalent value but all in new, barcoded first-class stamps, which I rarely use. So I gave some to our grandson, who used one to send me a card. This wasn’t delivered and I had to pay a fee to receive it. I then discovered the card was marked “re-used stamp”. I complained to Royal Mail, enclosing the envelope as proof of my claim. 

It replied to say: “Close inspection revealed that the stamp had been used before” – which was patently untrue. As a result, I have lost my trust in what was such a fine national institution.

Gwen Walton
Darley, North Yorkshire
 

The secret to a truly mouth-watering meat pie

SIR – I thought Mark Hix’s recipe for pork pie was a little bland (Magazine, August 5). 

I have been making raised pies for over 50 years and have always added a great variety of flavours and herbs to both the pastry and the meat. Fresh chopped or dried herbs, nutmeg, ground black pepper, Dijon mustard, garlic, Worcestershire sauce or sweet chilli sauce can all be used in any combination you fancy. Add a stock cube to the water for the pastry: vegetable, chicken or pork. 

For meat, I use chicken or turkey mince with diced gammon and lean diced pork with a mid layer of chicken breast, thigh or leg meat, or pheasant, thin-cut steak, even ostrich steak. The mid layer can also have red pepper strips for dramatic colour when cut open. 

This year I am teaching a number of friends to make the pies for our annual harvest supper. There will be a vegetarian version and one made with gluten-free flour. 

I avoid lard, preferring to use a white vegetable fat. To glaze, I always add salt to the beaten egg for extra depth of colour. For the cooking times I make sure the centre is cooked by using a meat thermometer set to 72C. 

Patricia Follett 
Leamington Spa, Warwickshire
 

The Royal Botanic Gardens are under threat

SIR – A potential disaster threatens the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 

The executive and board of trustees have stated their intention to move the herbarium of seven million pressed plant specimens from the 1853 building on the edge of Kew Green to the Thames Valley Science Park near Reading (an hour distant from Kew), at an estimated cost of up to £100 million – a significant proportion of which will come from taxes. This despite representations to the board by senior Kew scientists, who believe that there is space for another 90 years of safely preserved specimen accessions. 

The botanists and their support staff fear that losing immediate access to their vital research tools will not only compromise their effectiveness at a time of climate change and plant extinction crisis, but also discourage the thousands of professional scientists who visit Kew each year. The Royal Botanic Gardens is a British institution with a global reach, arguably the foremost botanical gardens in the world; that reputation rests on the work of its scientists. But, as one said to me: “If this project goes through, I won’t have a job worth having.” 

The reasons of the executive and trustees are opaque, and minutes of board meetings are yet to be published; the resulting void has been filled with rumours. It is time for Lord Benyon, Minister of State at Defra, who has oversight of Kew, to intervene.

Ursula Buchan
Peterborough
 

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