IN the same week that a High Court Judge warned of the serious consequences of the lack of mental health care for our young people, Scarborough and Ryedale Clinical Commissioning Group announced that it will no longer be providing a range of health services from next April but putting them out to private tender.

We have already seen large parts of the service provided by Scarborough Hospital cut or privatised and now this.

The cause of the problem is evident. Central government continues to starve the NHS of the funds it needs to carry out its statutory duties and continues to implement year-on-year wage cuts to NHS workers which adversely affects staff morale and recruitment.

Private firms who come in to fill the gaps can only make a profit if they cut services or the quality of staffing.

The NHS was not founded to enable private firms to make a profit out of the nation’s health care but to ensure that all citizens, no matter who they are or where they are, receive the treatment they need at no direct cost to themselves.

The solution is self-evident and was set out clearly in the Labour Party’s 2017 manifesto.

The NHS should receive the full funding it needs to carry out its services efficiently and compassionately.

The extra money would come from increasing income tax on those members of our society who can most afford it.

If the Member of Parliament for the Thirsk and Malton constituency and the Tory-run North Yorkshire County Council agree that privatisation of the NHS is the solution to the current problems, rather than adequate public funding, then they should come forward and say so.

Alan Avery, Thirsk and Malton Constituency Labour Party

Trip needed

M HAMMOND, of Kirkbymoorside, is an advocate of a strong socialist government to “put the country back on its feet’’.

I would suggest that he or she pay a visit to North Korea to see strong socialism in action.

A history of the Soviet Union and communism in China would also be very instructive.

This correspondent would also like to slap a confiscatory tax on the multi-rich.

However, this ignores one of the basic principles of economics. If you are rich enough you can live almost anywhere you choose.

The result of this left wing taxation policy which I am sure that Jeremy Corbyn would just love to implement would only drive the creators of wealth abroad to tax havens, leaving a shrinking tax base behind.

M Hammond evidently prefers the outdated fossil fuel energy industry which caused such a ghastly polluting mess in socialist eastern Europe to the cleaner and more sustainable modern alternatives.

Thank heaven “strong socialism” hasn’t arrived in the UK yet. I rest my case.

Dick Hayball, Pickering

Let’s all take cheer

HOW happy I was to see that the Howard family were able to settle a substantial tax liability by selling their belongings to the state.

How happy the family must be that they do not have to part with their belongings, and that we taxpayers - who paid for them - must still shell out our hard-won pennies to enter Castle Howard and gaze upon the very things that we now own.

To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve yet fathomed my disgust over this deal. Nor am I sure who to blame. The Howard family, or the museum bosses who colluded with them.

Still, let’s all take cheer. I, too, have a substantial tax liability and am hoping to persuade the Inland Revenue to take my collection of old singles and 78 rpm records in lieu of the debt.

But only on condition that I can still keep them at home and play them whenever I want to.

Bill Jones, Ampleforth