Peter Stanford (18 April) is right to be concerned about the neglect of the mentally ill which causes him to choke on the promise of tax cuts. There is a severe risk of apoplexy when the impact on mental health of poverty-related debt is taken into account. The Royal College of Psychiatrists tells us that one in four people with a mental health problem is in debt; to which can be added the finding that in one in two people who fall into debt has a mental health problem. The Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition points to the lifetime mental-health problems of low-birth-weight babies born to mothers experiencing poor maternal nutrition before and during a nine-month pregnancy; the need for three days’ food from a food bank for a woman of child-bearing age is a sign of wors