JULIAN Sturdy is surely taking the Michael by stating the budget rewards people who have worked all their lives with a private pension tax cut (‘People who have worked all lives deserve pension tax cut,’ The Press, April 11).

No Mr Sturdy, it is your government that has raised the state pension age even higher and faster than Hugh Bayley’s did and stolen thousands from men and women who were promised they could retire aged 60 and 65.

And in any case, the whole purpose of private pension funds is to provide an additional reasonable income in retirement: the problem is the pathetic annuity values, which politicians have never addressed.

Mr Sturdy’s assertion that younger people glaze over at the mention of pensions is no surprise as the Tories, et al, continue to place retirement further out of their reach.

Referring to the successful economies in the Far East and their superior ability as savers is an insult to the hidden underclass in those places that have to live in high-rise cages, as unrestricted capitalism prices them out of a decent life and home.

That is something the Tories are achieving in the UK through their nasty bedroom tax, high unemployment, under-employment, slumping living standards and Ian Duncan Smith’s other useless welfare initiatives.

Tom Scaife, Manor Drive, York.