IN reply to Alan Day’s comments on the National Insurance stamp (HAS, May 20), it was supposed to cover three areas of social provision – health, unemployment and retirement pension.

All governments since 1945 – including Labour – have refused to ring-fence the National Insurance cash. It was simply spent as ready cash.

The retirement pot was surely the equivalent of pot pension premiums. Had a private pension pot been spent instead of invested to cover future pensions, the directors would be in jail!

A National Insurance stamp comparison with Scandinavian countries/Germany/France would be of interest – maybe UK citizens are getting the NHS on the cheap.

Study your council tax bill and you’ll see the “Adult Social Care Levy”. It is obvious the Government intends offloading all of this area onto local council tax, so expect this payment to continue year on year.

The UK has about 26,000 charities – a shameful and humiliating figure, when we are 20 years into the 21st Century, not Victorian days.

Perhaps the Wednesday Lotto needs re-directing to the NHS and the UK operating in a much fairer manner than the gold-plated few benefitting ahead of the vast number of impoverished and vulnerable.

If Lotto for NHS, why not for defence costs?

Mr Day is correct in UK citizens being reluctant to any PAYE increase – after all they need it for their next alcoholic Benidorm spree!

GB Butler, Stockton-on-Tees.