Letter: Defending jobs

Sir: Donald Macintyre writes of "Roger Lyons' tendency to blame British interest rates for every factory closure in the North-east" (Comment, 15 September).

I am on record as accepting the debilitating affects of the Asian meltdown and the Russian crisis on British manufacturing industry. Of course it is true that an industry that relies so heavily on exports will be affected by world crises.

However a reduction of interest rates will help investment, profits and exports. It is still the role of government to help the creators of wealth, even in a global economy, by controlling those economic levers it has access to.

I congratulate the Monetary Policy Committee and the Government on hitting their inflation target and hope that action is now taken to make it as easy as possible to compete in the global market by cutting interest rates. It may not solve the Asian crisis but it may help our manufacturing industry survive it.

ROGER LYONS

General Secretary

MSF

London EC1