I’m glad the Echo is printing correspondence about the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership).

It is a big issue but most of the national press is ignoring it. I know there are more urgent issues internationally at this time, but, as Jamie Oliver said the other day, the papers always find room for celebrity rubbish and football. (He was lobbying Hilary Clinton about the TTIP the last time he was in USA.) If this trade agreement goes ahead, and private companies gain the right to take EU governments to court if the governments do anything which might reduce the companies’ profits.

It could affect almost everything in the UK, from animal welfare standards to NHS workers’ pay and conditions.

Andrew Martin (Echo letters, Sept 29) suggests that this will be only the legal confirmation of an existing informal arrangement whereby our government goes to great lengths to avoid offending corporations; there is truth in this.

Many people think that it would be helpful to put a tax on sugar for instance, but the supermarkets and food companies would hate that, so the government arranges a voluntary agreement with them instead, which will be totally ineffectual.

I wrote to our MP about TTIP and received an anodyne response.

But if, as the government says, there is nothing to worry about in this agreement, why have they been so secretive about it?

It is still being considered by Vince Cable’s Department but the details haven’t been made public.

All the major parties rely very heavily for their funding on major corporations.

Is the Green Party the only party that doesn’t?

Lynne Crowe
Rufus Way
Portland