IN RESPONSE to John Glen’s letter (Postbag, November 5) it seems that I was wrong about our MP. He did actually oppose the chancellor’s proposals to cut tax credits for working families, so that begs the question why did he vote for the proposals in the House of Commons? We now know that the Conservativecontrolled Work and Pensions Select Committee, of which he is a member, condemned the chancellor’s proposals and asked him to pause for a year.

The chancellor ignored the committee’s recommendations, yet Mr Glen and his Conservative colleagues still voted for the cuts in parliament, only for them to be embarrassingly defeated and sent back for re-consideration by the unelected House of Lords.

Furthermore, in his response to my letter (Postbag, October 29) John Glen mentioned his support for the government’s proposals for an increase in the national minimum wage and increasing personal tax allowances as a way of ameliorating the effects of the cuts in tax credits for working families, yet the very report that his committee wrote made it quite clear to the chancellor that raising the minimum wage and higher personal tax allowances “should not be confused with mitigation for the tax credit cuts as they benefit very different parts of the population”. Be honest with us please Mr Glen.

It will be very interesting to see which of his constituents John Glen chooses to represent as his government pursues its dogmatic policy of budget surplus creation over the coming years through spending cuts. Will he have sufficient courage to stand up for the most vulnerable in his constituency by opposing the £12 billion cuts in welfare, or will he continue to represent the more privileged who benefit from the tax cuts?

DR MARK POTTS Salisbury