SIR – The cut in the 50 per cent maximum income tax band to 45 per cent represents tax cuts for millionaires of tens of thousands of pounds.

This comes at a time of below-inflation wage increases and cuts in workers’ pay and outrageous attacks on the poor such as the bedroom tax and the housing benefit ceiling.

The Tories reply that the 45 per cent maximum is a higher rate of taxation on the rich than at any time under 13 years of New Labour when it was 40 per cent (except for the final weeks of the Labour government).

They further claim that the 50 per cent tax band was yielding less income for the exchequer than the 45 per cent rate.

The reason for this is that New Labour turned a blind eye to tax avoidance schemes when in power.

It is the hugely complicated system left by Gordon Brown that created the conditions allowing a 50 per cent tax rate to yield a smaller tax take than a 45 per cent rate.

Of course, the Tories, who are even louder cheerleaders for deregulation and tax cutting than New Labour, are more than content with this anomaly as it suits them ideologically.

The records of New Labour and the Tories in defending the wealth of the rich are only different in degree.

Inequality grew under New Labour and continues to grow under the coalition government.

PETER NIELSEN

Worcester