SIR - I find myself very disappointed with the editorial comment MPs vote to curb freedom is shameful' (Worcester News, May 22), because not only is the content of the piece factually wrong, it also feeds the cynicism about politicians.

The vote was about protecting confidentiality of correspondence not the publication of expenses.

The editorial line chose to ignore this. The Speaker of the House of Commons has given a ruling, binding on Parliament, that expenses will continue to be published as now.

Let me be quite blunt, I would not have supported the Bill last Friday if it merely sought to prevent the publication of expenses. It did not do this.

The whole debate centred on how best to protect correspondence that we receive from our constituents from being released publicly without our agreement by a third party.

We have sought the best advice on this. The key finding on third party disclosures of private details was, and I quote directly: "The public authority may be required to release a copy of members' correspondence if it receives a relevant request even though constituents who write to their MPs may not be aware of the risk of material being disclosed."

It was this advice, and real examples of such disclosures, that made the debate a necessary one to have. It is therefore disappointing to see this paper believe the conspiracy theorists about MPs' expenses, rather than the genuine concerns about protecting the private lives of our voters who seek help from their MP. So I offer a challenge - if the expenses are not published this October I will have been proved wrong and I will apologise; likewise, when they are published, then I expect the Worcester News to admit it was wrong.

Michael Foster MP, Worcester.