Letter: In Brief

Sir: I in fact called for a 4-per-cent, not 40-per-cent, tax on the 225 richest people in the world (Podium, 11 December). Though, assuredly, you could do a great deal more with the higher levy. These billionaires have a combined wealth of more than 1 trillion dollars. The UN Development Programme estimates that the cost of maintaining universal basic education, health care, reproductive health care for women and adequate food and safe water for all, would be $40bn a year. That is less than a 4-per-cent tax on the 225.

KEN COATES MEP

(Nottingham North and Chestersfield, Ind Lab)

Mansfield

Nottinghamshire