It’s just a copout to carp about EU

Mr Harper’s assertion (letters March 7) that immigration from the EU is responsible for our housing crisis is very wide of the mark.

In my direct experience immigrants are not eligible for help from the State unless they are employed and paying tax and certainly have no chance of jumping the housing queue - we were quoted four years as a minimum, and then only if employment and tax requirements had been met.

There are undoubtedly people who take advantage of the system, both British, other EU nationalities and those from further afield, but the rules are clearly set out on HMRC’s website.

A recent article by Jonathan Portes, former chief economist at the Cabinet Office, states that ‘all the evidence suggests that migrants - especially from new European member states - are net contributors to the public purse’.

There is a great deal more information in the article that is of interest to anyone concerned with this widely misrepresented issue. It can be found on the Guardian website.

In addition Mr Harper parrots the old UKIP line of the EU being an undemocratic clique that costs us a fortune. This is arrant nonsense. Like every other EU country we elect MEPs, 78 in total, who together with those elected from the other 26 members States make up the 754 members of the European Parliament.

The European Parliament and the European Council of Ministers puts forward proposals for discussion to the European Commission, the EU’s Civil Service, that draws up proposals for EU laws on those issues that fall within the EU’s competence.