2 NOVEMBER 1974, Page 4

Individual choice

Sir: Those of us who believe in individual choice are undoubtedly right to praise the recent pronouncements of Sir Keith Joseph. But what has been distinctly lacking in the past has been a willingness to challenge specific encroachments by the government on individual freedom. Too many of those who love their freedom have concentrated on attacking government intervention as a generalised evil. What it needed is a concerted attack on a, specific undermining of individuai, liberty. Such an occasion for an effort °I this kind is in fact shortly to present itself.

Mr Mulley, the Minister of Transport. made it clear during the election that the Government still intends to make the wearing of car seat belts compulsory despite the fact that the House of Lords has already once this year thrown the proposal out. The wearing of a car seat belt I contend is a matter for the individual and the individual alone. The risks are sufficiently well known (that in a majority of cases the wearing of a car seat belt will result in less injury in the event of accident but that in some cases it results in far greater injury) for each individual to decide for himself. For the Government to give us no choice in the matter would be humiliating for us al Andit would also make the next encroachment that much more a pushover. Roger Kalil Trinity College, Cambridge