From Mr George Nicholson Sir: I am writing to you

From Mr George Nicholson Sir: I am writing to you concerning Virginia Ironside's "Dilemmas" in Section Two (5 October) which unfortunately misleads readers into believing that Peru is "a country fraught with danger". I would like to inform Virginia Ironside, "horrified" Christine and Dominique Young that an estimated 500,000 foreign people will visit Peru this year. From Mr George J. Levy Sir: Virginia Bottomley, the Heritage Secretary, is to be congratulated for robustly opposing the Treasury's suggestion, contained in a leaked letter, that National Lottery funds should be used to relieve the Government of its financial obligation to the arts (report, 11 October). At the Conservative Party conference Mrs Bottomley also made the welcome announcement that by building on the success of the National Lottery she wanted "every schoolchild to have the opportunity to share our splendid artistic heritage".But this very important initiative for "young people" might well be in danger if inadequate core funding, by the Treasury, necessitates continuing staff cuts and room closures in museums, where these heritage objects are normally displayed.Yours faithfully,George J LevyH Blairman and SonsLondon, W112 October. From Mr Hilary Kilborn Sir: Maybe I am in a minority, but I am disgusted by the news that the pounds 9,000 donated to St George's church in Gravesend by Disney ("Disney fans follow the trail of Pocahontas legend to Kent", 11 October) is to be used to floodlight the church and Pocahontas's statue. Why should any church be floodlit? Why spend this money on something that will be an ongoing maintenance burden on church funds as well as a continuous drain on precious energy resources?Why not spend the money to forward the cause of racial equality and harmony or in some similarly useful area?Yours sincerely,Hilary KilbornLondon, SE12. The difference is accounted for by people working beyond their contracted hours without extra pay.These trends can only widen further the gap between the employment conditions of most UK workers and workers in the rest of Europe.Yours sincerely,John MonksGeneral Secretary, TUCLondon, WC1. The April 1994 New Earnings Survey showed that employers reported only 5 per cent worked these very long hours.

However the survey severely underestimates the hours many non-manual workers work. This is because many non-manuals - especially those in managerial and professional jobs - do not get paid overtime but find it impossible to get the job done within their contracted hours.The Central Statistical Office's Labour Force Survey, which asks individuals how many hours they work, found in spring 1994 that 34 per cent of full- time non-manual employees reported working 45 hours or more a week. This captures most of the excessive hours worked by blue- collar workers. The NES is based on employers' reports of contracted hours, including paid overtime. The receipts from such sales come back into the NHS and offset the cost to the taxpayer of manufacturing the product. Donors have always indicated that the sale abroad of any surplus is preferable to the alternative, which is to burn it.Yours sincerely,John AdeyChief ExecutiveNational Blood ServiceWatford, Hertfordshire.

From Mr John Monks Sir: Paul Wallace's article ("Bigger rises for better-off widen the earnings gap," 29 September) reports from the New Earnings Survey on hours worked by non-manual workers, including those in professional and managerial jobs. If a surplus of any blood product remains after satisfying NHS demand then it may be offered for sale abroad. The plasma from blood donations can also be used to manufacture blood products such as Factor VIII and albumin for use in the treatment of patients. The amount of blood collected is determined by the needs of hospitals to provide transfusions. This is not the case and the blood service continues to maintain its usual high standard.Finally the NHS is not making money out of blood donors. The aim of the proposals is not "to trim pounds 10m from the annual budget" but to produce a blood service that is even more safe, reliable and efficient.Your claims about staff losses imply that centres are understaffed or contain inappropriately qualified personnel. All existing centres would remain open but the processing and testing of blood donations, currently conducted in all 15 centres, will be consolidated in 10. The proposals for reorganising the service came not from independent consultants but from working groups of blood service staff Outside consultants were used to analyse data.

The perverse result (from the Tory party's point of view) would be an unavoidable increase in the EU's central negotiating powers.Yours faithfully,Michael JohnsonLondon, N611 October. From Mr John Adey Sir: Your article "Blood service crisis as staff exodus bites" (9 October) contains several inaccuracies We are not proposing to close any blood centres. If there were to be a serious transatlantic negotiation for real liberalisation and if Europe were adequately to protect its legitimate interests in that process, then Europe would have to negotiate as one for an outcome based on single agreed standards. There would be little advantage for the US in negotiating with Europe if it did not get real bilateral concessions in these matters.5. Not only would the EU (including Britain) have to bite on some unwelcome negotiating bullets: in some of these sensitive subjects the European Commission, according to opinion 1/94 of the Court of Justice, does not have exclusive negotiating rights. If the US were to take on the domestic lobbies on these issues for the purposes of a bilateral agreement with Europe, the matching benefits would have to be huge.

America would demand higher standards from a bilateral agreement than from one in the WTO framework. The obvious precedent is the Nafta agreement of 1993 with Canada and Mexico. Apart from tariffs, standards, etc, Nafta imposes far-reaching obligations in areas such as investment, services, government procurement, intellectual property and travel restrictions, which are much less comprehensively dealt with in the WTO. There seems no conspicuous enthusiasm among American politicians for a transatlantic FTA. In the multilateral negotiations which led to the establishment of the World Trade Organisation the US settled, for domestic reasons, for a disappointing degree of reform of tariffs and agricultural policy, and stood aside from the recent WTO agreement on financial services.4.