SIR – In defending the ‘parachute premium payment’ to soldiers, Godfrey Bloom runs the risk of allowing emotion to overcome logic (T&A, June 2).

For example, when was the last time it was necessary to deliver British troops into a conflict zone by parachute?

The answer is many decades ago, simply because troop-transport technology and warfare have both moved on. For the recent generations of ‘paratroopers’ it has become merely a Government-sponsored sky-diving hobby.

It is no longer necessary to maintain any of that airborne manpower-delivery function, so why continue the obsolete ‘Spanish custom’ of paying the parachute premium?

I agree wholeheartedly that all our professional troops should be paid the full market-rate for the vital jobs they do, but this wage-rate should not be artificially built around random treats and top-ups which bear no relation to the needs of the 21st-century army.

But I suppose when compared to the expense account of an MEP...

Graham Hoyle, Kirkbourne Grove, Baildon