ON DECEMBER 6, Pamela Frankland sensibly expressed the view that employers should not have to allow unpaid leave to the bereaved, one with which I heartily agreed.

I feel just as strongly against unpaid leave being allowed to grandparents, to look after the children of their own daughters who insist on having children when they have no intention of staying at home and giving them a stable family life.

Small businesses should be the backbone of British business; instead they are very much the poor relation.

Whenever an employee takes time off, for whatever reason, their employers either have to carry on with less staff or replace them, only temporarily, with people who are not familiar with the jobs.

Businesses already have to carry the burden of employing women who have every intention of being mothers, irrespective of the problems this causes, or risk breaking the law by refusing to employ women of child-bearing age.

The world of work has nowadays to revolve around women who do not only want it all, but insist on having it, in spite of the problems this causes every other section of society.

Heather Causnett, Escrick Park Gardens, Escrick, York.