SIR – Your report on the increase in the Fire Authority precept for local taxpayers (T&A, February 22) fails to give the full story.

The Labour chairman, Coun Mehboob Khan, unsurprisingly blames the Government for the increase which he describes as “small” – I am not sure that a 9.5 per cent increase would be considered “small” by most people who are struggling to make ends meet. At the meeting to decide the increase, the Conservatives proposed a more modest three per cent increase which would have been sufficient, but sadly Labour and the Liberal Democrats joined forces and voted for this massive increase.

The Fire Authority is on course to underspend its budget this year by £1.7 million. We already know there are due to be fire station closures and mergers in coming years, so to hit taxpayers in this way is wrong and unjustifiable. Rather than putting money into the Fire Authority’s reserves, we should be leaving it in people’s own pockets. Coun Khan appears to know this as he initially denied us a recorded vote on the issue, before being forced to by the legal adviser! If he is so ashamed for making decisions for political rather than economic reasons, then he isn’t fit to make them.

Coun Debbie Davies (Conservative, Baildon ward), Hartlington Court, Baildon