SMOKING BAN: THANK you for publishing information on how North-East Members of Parliament voted on the recent bill to ban smoking in public places. It certainly makes salutary reading.

Could I remind readers that smoking is the major cause of premature mortality and considerable morbidity.

One in eight smokers will die a rather unpleasant death from lung cancer. Smoking is a major risk factor for cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, many of which, like heart attacks, cause premature mortality and are responsible for much human suffering. About 2,000 people die each year from passive smoking.

Those who argue for freedom of choice would do well to pause and reflect on these facts. Would they like to be one of the unfortunate 2,000?

From the way that they voted, Bill Etherington (Labour Sunderland North), Helen Goodman (Labour Bishop Auckland) and Anne McIntosh (Conservative Vale of York) are either unaware of these facts, or more worryingly, if they are, choose cynically to ignore them.

If either is the case then I have to question their ability to represent large bodies of people when their decisions show such scant respect for evidence which is overwhelmingly in favour of a ban on smoking in public places. - Dr Colin Waine, Bishop Auckland.

WOMEN AND EQUAL PAY

IT'S official (though most of us in the world of work had a pretty good idea of this anyway) - being a woman still means being paid less, on average a quarter less than men.

How is it that after 18 months of consultation, Lady Prosser's Women at Work Commission reveals these appalling pay gaps between the sexes, and fails to put forward a resolution to enforce equal pay for equal work? The commission should have gone further and recommended a mandatory pay audit. No good employer would mind proving that he is fair-minded, and pays the same wage to all employees for the work they do, not according to their gender.

In fact, an audit simply ensures an employer is complying with the law. Without an audit, employers will be vulnerable to thousands of individual, costly equal pay cases. Perhaps Mr Blair could remove some of the EU bureaucratic red tape he forces on our businesses, and ask that employers fulfil this audit instead? At least this check would have a positive result for the employees.

Yet again, this Labour Government talks about improving people's lives and fails to deliver it. Only the Conservatives will stand up for hard-working families, who are just asking for a level playing field. Under David Cameron, unequal pay based on sexual discrimination would be completely and totally unacceptable. - Anne-Marie Trevelyan, Political Spokesman, Berwick Conservatives.

PROTECTIVE SERVICES

THE focus for any future debate on the development of strategic forces should be firmly based on operational policing and improved public services. Statements and rhetoric on the governance and politics of policing, while important, are about support and accountability but do not lead to arrests of criminals or crime detection and safer communities.

Recently, Durham and Northumbria Police authorities voted in favour of a voluntary merger. The reasons for this are clear: protective services and the ability to guarantee and build on long-term neighbourhood policing.

Protective services are necessary to counter what are real and significant threats, but while an improved regional response is needed, maintaining the links to neighbourhood policing is acknowledged as critical.

The events of last Friday have denied us many millions in support funding and with it the opportunity to quickly start improving police services in the North-East, but in the medium-term we remain focused on the need to restructure policing in the region to meet the demands of 21st century policing while improving delivery of local policing tailored to local needs.

These savings will be reinvested to release operational police officers to the frontline and improve protective services. The total number of police officers and police staff will not fall; in fact we envisage that there will be approximately 100-200 more people working within the new organisation.

The public needs and deserves to be properly protected. We remain firmly committed to establishing a strategic North-East Police Force and will continue to work to deliver this. We are convinced that improving protective services, reducing bureaucracy and releasing police officers from support functions to frontline policing adds up to a better, more effective and efficient means of delivering a higher quality service to local communities. - Michael Craik, Chief Constable, Northumbria Police, Councillor Mick Henry, Chairman, Northumbria Police Authority, Jon Stoddart, Chief Constable, Durham Constabulary and Councillor Mrs Anne Wright, Chair Durham Police Authority.

DISABLED PARKING

RE disabled parking in Darlington town centre (HAS, Feb 27). My opinion is that there is not enough disabled parking bays in Darlington.

When you drive into the town centre sometimes you cannot find a disabled bay, so you have to go into a car park.

That is not so bad, but on a Saturday it is sometimes impossible to get parked at all.

There is also a problem with disabled parking in supermarkets where able bodied people park in disabled bays. You complain but the staff are not interested but if all supermarkets got together and starting fining people who park in the disabled and mother and children bays that would deter them. - P Maven, Darlington.

ID CARDS

IT would appear that if the ID card bill becomes law, when I apply for a passport in future I also have to accept an ID card. This is compulsory.

If a Muslim extremist "sleeper" living in this country has the passport of a foreign country he does not have to renew or apply for a British passport. Therefore, does this mean that a law-abiding British subject has to have an ID card but a potential terrorist does not?

How does this help in the fight against terror? - Barry Wood, Edmondsley.

CIRCUS ANIMALS

PLEASE help end the misery of circus animals by writing to your MP asking them to support recommendations to the Animal Welfare Bill to bring about a ban on the use of animals in circuses.

A decade of undercover filming has produced evidence of shocking abuse to circus animals. Visit www.ad-international.org. for information.

Travelling animal circuses, by their very nature, cause distress and suffering. Exercise is limited, and animals travel whilst sick, injured, or pregnant and are forced to give birth on the road in a noisy environment. Footage abounds of tigers, lions, hippos being hit with iron bars, donkeys kicked, horses whipped and camels beaten.

As an animal circus closes it is replaced with an animal-free circus.

Please contact Animal Defenders International, 261 Goldhawk Road, London, W12 9PE for more information. - L Edwards, Durham.