I WAS very encouraged to learn that David Cameron is proposing to decriminalise non-TV licence payers.

During my Masters degree in Criminology I learnt that many poor women with young children were being sent to Holloway simply for being unable to afford the licence fee and the £1,000 fine.

Thus an unjust return to the Dickensian days of debtors prison was occurring in our modern times.

I now see the new Conservatives are compassionate politicians.

I therefore sincerely hope that our caring Prime Minister overrules Lord Freud’s bedroom tax as this was a political mistake that inadvertently fuelled the meteoric rise of the SNP.

Furthermore, this strategic error has led to rows upon rows of empty three-bedroom houses in the North of England that landlords are no longer able to rent out.

So, from every conceivable political angle, this supposedly money-saving strategy of Lord Freud was a gargantuan error. I sincerely hope that our caring and shrewd Prime Minister will rectify matters soon.

SUSAN THOMAS
Magdalen Road
Oxford