Shock for taxpayers

Many readers will be incensed by the article (March 28) about taxpayers being forced to fund civil service pay parity rates.

It seems to me that pay parity can be achieved simply by applying lowest common denominator formula to pay scales, whereby salary is reduced to accord with the lowest rate at which a particular function is being adequately performed. Gender should not be a factor in the equation.

The manufacturing industry has been decimated by the relocation of facilities to Eastern Europe, where pay rates are roughly 20 per cent of equivalent UK scales.

In consequence, workers have been forced to transfer into unskilled jobs at lower pay rates, and compete with European immigrants. By what right does the civil service believe that they should be insulated against normal commercial pressures?

To those who insist pay parity can be achieved only by uplifting the lower salary to the higher level, I pose a question. If two identical products were offered in a supermarket, with one at a higher price than the other, would they choose to pay the higher price? No? Neither should we.

Alan V Harrison, Julian Close, Great Wyrley, Walsall.