As a low-paid worker in the hotel industry, I welcomed the introduction of the minimum wage, even though my weekly pay is probably less than an average MP's weekly wining and dining bill.

It was my understanding the minimum rate of £4.85 per hour was the bare subsistence sum needed to keep body and soul together.

However, when this rate increases by 20p in the autumn, my employer tells me I will lose 33p in income tax and national insurance for every extra pound of income.

Why should anyone working a 40-hour-week on the minimum or subsistence wage not be able to keep what he or she earns without tax deductions?

Can one of the local MPs explain, please?

-Sam Leach, Brighton