SIR – ‘Mary’ lives alone in her two-bedroom home now that her son has left. She can’t find a job or a smaller place to live, so she will have to pay the £14 bedroom tax on her spare room plus 25 per cent council tax.

With inflation at nearly three per cent and benefit increases capped at one per cent, how will she pay extortionate gas and electric bills as well as put food on the table?

Millions are living on or below the breadline yet the Con-Dems continue to persecute those with the least resources. No-one deserves to be in this position.

D Rhodes, Croscombe Walk, Bradford