MICHAEL BENNIE, of College Road, Newton Abbot, writes:
I don't want to get into a debate with Mike Smith (Letters, February 27) about whether EU membership is good or bad for Britain, but I am concerned that if no one challenges the statements he makes about the subject, some people might actually believe them. I would, therefore, be grateful if he could clarify a few of his assertions.
1 Post office closures are 'a direct result of EU diktat'. What diktat is that? My understanding is that the closures are a direct result of the government's insistence that Royal Mail should make a profit, which has nothing to do with the EU.
2 'Likewise with fortnightly rubbish collections'. Really? And there was I thinking that the frequency of collections was a matter for the local council. Does this mean that all those people who wrote to Teignbridge Council complaining about this should have been writing to the European Commission instead?
3 'Joining the Euro would see the end of a free NHS'. Why? What has the currency we use got to do with our health service? Did France, Germany, Holland, etc, have to change their health services when they adopted the Euro? If so, why have they all still got such different systems – most of which are free?
4 Only '25 per cent' of legislation comes from Westminster. Where did that figure come from? As far as I'm aware, at least 75 per cent of our laws are decided at Westminster and the vast majority of the rest are the result of negotiation and agreement by our democratically-elected government.
Finally, I would query his figures on what the EU costs us. He says the Bruges Group puts it at £56 billion and the Taxpayers' Alliance at £150 billion. That is quite a difference and suggests that they don't really know. In fact the official figure is about £4 billion.
If we are going to have a debate, at least let's have it on the basis of the right information.