CHRIS DAVIES (Letters April 22) challenged us to join the debate on the EU, and promised to tear our arguments to shreds. When I joined the debate (letters May 6) I left the little matter of EU fraud and corruption until another time. I have been waiting in vain to be torn to shreds!

Back in 1999, one Paul van Buitenen (an EU employee) blew the whistle on a number of fraudulent activities in the European Commission. These included bribes in return for contracts, money disappearing into private accounts, and friends and families being kept on the payroll at public expense. Attempts were made to silence the whistle-blower, but the resulting furore led to the resignation of the entire Commission.

Our own Neil Kinnock was put in charge of a clean-up operation but three years later nothing had changed. A second whistle-blower, Marta Andreasen, the EU's Chief Accountant, disclosed other irregularities. Not only did Kinnock fail to pursue the allegations, but he had Andreasen sacked. The first serious attempt to tackle fraud, was the setting up of an EU Court of Auditors some ten years ago. In every single year since then, the Court has refused to sign off the EU budget, identifying huge sums being lost or stolen, and it is estimated that in each year, some £4,000,000,000 of the EU budget goes missing and unaccounted for. What would be the fate of any commercial organisation whose accounts were not approved by its auditors?

The Travel Allowance: Payments are set sufficiently high to exceed the cost of first class air fares. No receipt is required, and members need only present their boarding passes to claim the allowance. No machinery exists to reimburse the sums actually spent, and given the wide availability of cheap air fares, this is a nice little earner estimated to be worth about £600 per week on average.

The Attendance Allowance: Widely known as 'the sign-on and sod-off fee', amounts to around £180 per day. To claim this, an MEP must merely sign in before 10am. There is no requirement for him/her to speak and nothing to prevent an MEP asking his/her research assistant to sign in on his/her behalf -- no one checks up.

The Staff Allowance: Amounts to around £8,500 a month, enough to employ a secretary and research assistant. The practice of employing a member of the family, has been described by one MEP as 'almost universal'. No receipts are necessary and the system is not subject to an audit.

The General Expenses Allowance: Is worth £2,540 per month, may be paid directly into a members bank account and no receipts are necessary. MEPs from Spain, Greece, Austria and Portugal, share a unique privilege with MPs from their national legislatures -- that of being paid for 13 months a year rather than 12, while those from Luxembourg are paid for 14 months a year.

Britain is the second largest contributor to the EU budget, and your readers are hugely funding these abuses, via their taxes. If the UK were outside the EU, not only would it have the same access to the 'single market' as it does now, but the vast sums saved would fund more schools and teachers than we would ever need, more police than we could ever use, and instead of patients being on a waiting list for hospitals, hospitals could be waiting for patients.

John Ormerod, Treasurer

Fylde Coast UKIP