NATIONAL charities are using zero hours contracts on their staff. However, they don’t apply the zero hours contracts to their office and executive staff, raking in £100K plus a year. That is despite thousands working for charities for free. While they have concessions and considerable high street rent advantages, bona fide businesses do not.

Charities used to be for helping those who fall between the gaps in the systems. Now, charities are the system. Last week, Diversity Cymru went online attacking the Tory party in Wales for listing them among the 5,000 small businesses that supported Cameron and Co.

Maybe Cameron knows more about the real status of many charities than we do? Are they in fact small businesses? We know many get dispensation to sell brand new goods up to 40 percent of their retail, tax free. Not a concession other small traders have. One charity for the deaf has a turnover in excess of £40m a year. The charitable sector is worth more than £6 billion a year – small business? I think not. Corporate business on those figures – time to tax them?

Mervyn James, Kensington Grove, Newport