Letters: A substantial pay rise for NHS staff is simply unaffordable at this time

SIR – I am a ward manager of a very busy surgical ward and am utterly appalled by the recommendation of the Royal College of Nursing for possible strike action (report, March 6) due to the Government’s 1 per cent pay increase.

We nurses are fortunate to be able to go into work each day. We have not been furloughed, we have homes to go to at the end of a shift and have great support at work. We continue to get paid if we are ever off sick.

This pandemic has exerted an unbelievable toll on the economy of our country and this will take years to put right. We must never put our patients’ lives at risk just for more money that isn’t there.

Mary Moore
London E2

SIR – While I am sure many taxpayers would love to reward NHS front-line staff handsomely for the dedication shown during the pandemic, we have to face facts: the country has ratcheted up billions of pounds of debt that has to be paid at some point. Doubtless other public service workers could also put forward a case: police who acted as Covid marshals, say, or teachers who operated online. The blunt truth is that NHS staff have secure, pensionable jobs – unlike millions of others who face an uncertain future.

Eve Wilson
Hill Head, Hampshire

SIR – Our front-line NHS workers have, in effect, saved the face of the Government during the pandemic.

This was a great opportunity to reward the valiant nurses and doctors appropriately and to differentiate between the heroes on the front line and the overpaid and under-effective bureaucrats behind the scenes.

It’s disappointing to realise that our elected Conservative Government is so out of touch with voters.

Robert Barlow
Little Bookham, Surrey

SIR – Why is our Government so unskilled in both employment good practice and public relations? The offer of a 1 per cent pay rise to NHS staff was rightly seen as insulting.

The payment of a bonus of 10 per cent to reward staff for their special dedication to duty in the year to March 31 2021 would have been greeted as both meaningful and fair. Future pay reviews could then have been looked at later in the year in the normal way, and not in the context of the special stresses of the past 12 months.

John Padovan
London SW1

SIR – Police officers, teachers, postmen, refuse collectors and the Army should also be recognised for their front-line work at this time.

The police particularly have suffered great abuse both physically and mentally, but have never been “clapped” for their efforts. Our society takes them for granted and their role during the pandemic has been difficult and complex.

Deborah Young
Winterbourne Bassett, Wiltshire

Teaching skills for life

SIR – As schools and colleges return, we must not neglect the millions of adults whose lives have been upended by the pandemic.

The Government’s “skills revolution” is valuable, but only a start. We need skills for life, not just “skills for jobs”. Broad and flexible adult education builds community, strengthens mental health, and helps people lead fulfilling lives.

Nine million adults in England still struggle with the essential skills of reading, writing and computing. We urgently call for: a properly funded national strategy led by a dedicated lifelong learning minister; a community learning centre in every town; money for individuals and groups to shape their own learning; new regional partnerships between local and regional authorities, voluntary groups, universities and further education colleges; restoration of the Union Learning Fund; and a requirement for universities to provide adult education in their communities.

Post-pandemic investment in wider adult education will pay real dividends. No one must be left behind.

Dame Helen Ghosh
Chairman, The Centenary Commission on Adult Education

Alan Tuckett
Vice-Chairman, The Centenary Commission

Baroness Bakewell (Lab)
President, Birkbeck University of London

Lord Blunkett (Lab)
Former Secretary of State for Education and Employment

Sir Vince Cable
Former Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills

Grayson Perry

Lord (Bob) Kerslake
Former Head of the Home Civil Service

Sir Anthony Seldon
Former Vice-Chancellor, University of Buckingham

Baroness (Estelle) Morris
Former Secretary of State for Education

Baroness (Virginia) Bottomley
Chancellor, University of Hull

His Honour John Samuels QC
President, Prisoners’ Education Trust

Professor Tim Blackman
Vice-Chancellor, The Open University

Lord Boswell of Aynho
Former Conservative MP and Education Minister

Ruby Wax
Mental health campaigner

Sir Jon Coles
Group Chief Executive, United Learning Trust

Margaret Greenwood MP
Chairman, The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Adult Education

Dan Jarvis MP
Mayor of Sheffield

Tim Melville-Ross
Former Chairman, Higher Education Funding Council for England

Professor Jonathan Michie
President of Kellogg College, Oxford and Chairman, Universities Association for Lifelong Learning

Baroness (Helena) Kennedy QC

Lord (Neil) Kinnock

Frances O’Grady
General Secretary, Trades Union Congress

Daisy Cooper MP (Lib Dem)

John Holford
Robert Peers Professor of Adult Education, University of Nottingham

Lalage Bown
Emeritus Professor of Adult Education, University of Glasgow

Liz Bromley
Chief Executive, NCG

Lord (Chris) Smith
Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge

Helen Barnard
Director, Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Philippa Perry
Psychotherapist and author

John Bercow
Former Speaker of the House of Commons

Kirstie Donnelly
Chief Executive, City & Guilds Group

Baroness (Sue) Garden of Frognal
Liberal Democrat spokesperson on Further & Higher Education, House of Lords

What awaits the Sussexes after the media storm

SIR – Within a few short years the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will be of little interest to the United States. Their fair-weather Hollywood friends will have deserted them, as they will no longer have close royal connections, and for similar reasons they will be of no further use to Netflix.

However, all is not lost, and if they do decide to return to this country, I am sure that most people would find it in their hearts to forgive them for leaving us.

Ted Shorter
Tonbridge, Kent

SIR – As Oprah Winfrey well knows, celebrity has a very short shelf-life unless accompanied by exploitable talent.

After they tell “their truth”, what else have Harry and Meghan got to sell? Their lives as relatively poor, semi-detached royals will be ones of painful exclusion from the mega-rich social lives of the American tech and media moguls they may court.

Brian Seage
Liskeard, Cornwall

SIR – The image of Prince Harry and James Corden on top of the bus in Los Angeles (report, February 27) put me in mind of the sketch in which Peter Cook, dressed as Greta Garbo, drove through London in an open-top car yelling through a megaphone: “I want to be alone!”

Andy Moreton
Uxbridge, Middlesex

SIR – Meghan married a prince and made him a pauper. She has destroyed his initiative.

Miriam Howitt
London SW15

SIR – I share Charles Moore’s irritation (Comment, March 6) that the Sussexes have only spent six hours in their titled county.

As an exiled South Saxon, I would like to register my additional concern that neither of their coats of arms contains a Sussex martlet – the birds normally present in an inverted pyramid in the county shield.

Phillip Pennicott
London E18

Easing lockdown

SIR – I agree with Jill Kirby (Commentary, March 6) that the vaccinated elderly should now “manage their own risk”. With increasing evidence about the effectiveness of the vaccines when it comes to reducing serious illness and transmission, the locked-up elderly should be permitted some freedom now.

Indeed, I believe that people of all ages would back an OAPs campaign: Oldies Against Perpetual Solitude. Some relaxation of the restrictions would improve the physical and mental well-being of this group, many of whom have barely been out for 12 months. They should not be made to wait until May to have a cup of tea with a neighbour indoors.

William Tice
Southampton

SIR – The Government tells us that it will be guided by data not dates in taking the country out of lockdown. The data say to start unlocking the country now, so why are we waiting for an arbitrary date? Every day in lockdown adds to the cost in terms of failed businesses, lost jobs, mental health problems and the debt that we will be paying for the rest of our lives.

A “Big Bang” approach to ending lockdown would be reckless, but there is no longer any justification for stopping families and friends from meeting in an outdoor setting for a drink, a meal or a round of golf.

Christopher Cowan
Hook, Hampshire

Family and the Union

SIR – Douglas Murray (Comment, March 6) represents possibly millions of British families either living in a country of the United Kingdom not of their birth and/or with mixed British or Irish ancestry.

My mother was Welsh, my father English; we have a son-in-law from Northern Ireland and we currently live in Scotland. Not surprisingly, I love all parts and peoples of the United Kingdom and identify only as British. Scotland’s independence will leave me, and many others, feeling stateless.

Dr David Slawson
Nairn

SIR – The Conservative, Lib Dem and Labour parties are now irrelevant in determining Scotland’s political future.

Only the formation of a Scottish Unionist Alliance, committed to the single issue of unity, can halt the Scottish Nationalist bandwagon and by doing so save not only the United Kingdom but Scotland itself.

Giles Slaughter
Woodbridge, Suffolk

Twists and turns on the way across country

SIR – Michael Bingham (Letters, March 4) reminds us that we should face oncoming traffic as we walk along country lanes.

I can assure you, as someone who walks the narrow and tortuous lanes of Cornwall every day, that it makes more sense to walk on the outside of a bend whatever the direction, thus allowing oncoming traffic to see pedestrians far earlier than if they were walking on the inside.

Paul Penrose
Ruan Minor, Cornwall

Sacred mysteries

SIR – The Rev Duncan Beet’s belief (Letters, March 3) that the future of worship lies outside the conventional concept of “church” misses the special experience of being inside a church.

Even as an atheist I always feel that, irrespective of belief or denomination, there is a presence there that is found nowhere else.

Alan Edwards
Evesham, Worcestershire

Slim chance

SIR – The most overweight couple I know always have a fridge stuffed with diet foods (“GPs will prescribe diets to combat obesity”, report, March 3).

Amanda Howard
Enfield, Middlesex

Tunnel vision

SIR – I understand that the Government is contemplating building a tunnel to Northern Ireland.

Given that a ferry return trip to the Isle of Wight can cost over £150, could they have a trial run under the Solent?

Ian Watson
Uckfield, East Sussex

Case closed

SIR – Jo O’Grady (Letters, March 5) is wrong in stating it is impossible to act as if a case is full. Only bad actors are guilty of this cardinal sin.

One of the first things I was taught at drama school was how to carry a case as if it were full. Those who did not come up to scratch were obliged to lug a case around with two heavy stage weights – normally used to hold up the set – until the lesson was learnt.

Let us hope Rishi Sunak is a better Chancellor than he is an actor.

Nicholas Young
London W13

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