LETTERS: How the Labour Party's minimum wage will create jobs

Differentials between the lowest paid and those who earn more have widened in the last decade ("Money is blind but can Labour hear?", Business, 19 May). The introduction of a minimum wage would probably go only part way to restoring the differential, so those more fortunate have no justifiable claim to higher wages.

More enterprising and market-oriented companies are likely to benefit from a minimum wage because they will no longer be undercut by companies using sweated labour. The freedom to pay not only as much as a company likes but also as little is not the unalloyed benefit many trade associations, pressured by the lowest common denominator among their members, would have politicians believe.

Elizabeth Hill

London NW5