SIR – D S Boyes seems over the moon at the Chancellor’s autumn budget statement (Letters, December 7). As well as tinkering with taxes and allowances he is offering OAPs a £2.95 weekly rise.

Future pensioners will have to work until they drop at 70 years old before they get any benefit.

Unemployment is unacceptably high, particularly among young people.

D S Boyes is particularly critical of our under-21s. He should take a visit to the JobCentre, try the Job Search programme and see where that gets him.

Scandal after scandal still emerge from the banks and financial institutions, even Government-owned ones, while bankers’ pay reaches obscene levels. The city still rules us. Fuel, water bills, food too, the essentials of life are a difficult choice for many pensioners.

Chancellor Osborne tells us the economic recovery is well on its way, but austerity will be imposed into the distant future.

What a contradiction. He is ruling over a country in crisis.

Still, we have to be grateful for small mercies.

R J Lacey, Wrose Road, Bradford