GARY Webb (You Say, Thursday, September 25) says that the EU is preventing window-cleaners from using a ladder without a mate holding on below.

In fact, the EU law states the exact opposite, that it should be illegal to have anybody holding on and that the base of all ladders should be firmly anchored in the ground instead.

This still does not make it a Directive of which the EU should be proud.

As Conservative Spokesman on Employment (which covers Health & Safety issues) in the European Parliament, the verbatim record shows that I spoke out fiercely against this whole Directive.

I said that we did not join the EU in order to be told how to climb ladders by Brussels, and that we should be concerned with the larger European issues that really mattered. The written record also shows that I was harangued at length for apparently not caring about Health & Safety by the MEP responsible for not only piloting the Directive through the Parliament but for making it even more restrictive, none other than a UK Labour MEP.

The problem is not that "the UK does what it is told" - the problem is those UK politicians who actively campaign for more EU rules telling us what to do.

PHILIP BUSHILL-MATTHEWS

MEP European Parliament

(and Conservative Office, Sansome Place, Worcester).