REGARDING your Comment and report (LET, April 14) about the rebellion by 41 Labour MPs, because of the 1980 break of the pension up-rating link with earnings causing the present 75p increase in the state pension, this link was one of the benefits promised by the 1978 additional State Earnings Related Pension contract.

Another was the widows' entitlement to the husbands' full SERPS pension. That this inheritance right was cut by half in 1986 must also be of concern to present and future SERPS pensioners, many of whom may not be aware of the outrage.

The legislation for this cut is in the infamous 1986 pension reforms which also caused the mis-selling scandal.

Ministers didn't care that SERPS members and their employers had paid into the scheme on the basis of the original contract. They only wanted to save money and clobber those whom they branded "well off" -- anyone with a few quid more than the basic pension.

The cut was to start in 2000, but they kept it secret until 1996 when it was surreptitiously slipped into DSS publications, so obscure that it wasn't picked up by the media until last year. The present administration has postponed the cut until October 2002 and will start a scheme next year whereby SERPS members can reapply for the right which they had already earned.

It seems claimants will have to prove that they asked the DSS and were give the wrong information on which they then based their financial decision.

This will favour those who suspected the last government, having first defrauded pensioners of the earnings up-rating link, was next capable of robbing their widows. The trusting majority who did not question the integrity of the scheme will be left in the cold.

The aim of any government is to reduce the benefits budget and pensioners are easiest to fleece.

Victims of this disgraceful and punitive act would do well to protect before it is too late. We don't have tractors with which to blockade Downing Street, but we can complain to our MP, Trades union, employer, etc. Let us show that we are tired of letting ourselves be walked all over and cheated of our rights!

G RAYNER, Whinney Lane, Langho.