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
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