AN article in the Business Press carried the headline: "How Euro cash has helped our region" (June 24).

Readers should be reminded that the United Kingdom is the second largest net contributor to the European Union budget. Thus, what the writer refers to as "Euro cash" comes from taxes that British citizens have paid to Westminster, from where it was sent to Brussels, to enable the EU to send some of it back to us. In other words it is our own money.

How much more sensible it would be for the British Government to distribute the funding direct to the regions without having to send it to Brussels in the first place.

W C Harrison,

Queen's Court,

Fetter Lane, York.

...SIR Graham Hall's concern about the possible loss of £43 million 2000-2006, say £6 million per year, is small beer compared with a conservative estimate of the £15 billion it costs this country to remain wedded to the EU. Sir Graham's £6 million is 0.0004 (i.e. four thousandths) of the UK contribution.

I know this does not compare like with like, but it should concentrate the mind on why we send money to Brussels for them to "shuffle and take a cut" plus the administrative cost involved just to get minuscule amounts returned to us.

Why don't we just keep the money in the UK and redistribute it ourselves?

Derek Chapplow.

Middlethorpe Grove, York.

Updated: 11:44 Thursday, July 03, 2003