L Stringer is wrong to suggest Lottery funds should be used to subsidise struggling hospitals (Letters, January 13).

Essential services such as health and education must be paid for by central taxation and not subject to the whims and vagaries of gambling.

It is quite easy to get a properly funded health service but, sadly, no political party has the guts to tell us the simple truth: You get what you pay for.

As a Lottery player, I would strongly object to the Government using it as a way of avoiding charging proper rates of taxation.

-Tony Carr, Malthouse Close, Sompting