SIR - The Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill being introduced will allow bailiffs to break down your doors.

Up to now a bailiff can only enter your house if you invite him in or you go out and leave the doors or windows unlocked, so he can get in without breaking and entering.

But, as the Citizens Advice Bureau points out, many bailiffs misrepresent their powers, are abusive and aggressive. They use threats of prison to pressurise people into paying lump sums they cannot afford, impose fees that can increase the size of the original debt many times over, take away or threaten to seize essential household equipment such as kettles, hoovers, fridges and washing machines, remove property from the wrong person or take goods not owned by the person in debt.

Once they've got your possessions, they typically sell them for 10 per cent of their worth - just enough to cover their fees, meaning you still owe the same amount afterwards.

There is no way to get your possessions back. Even if it's a case of mistaken identity, or you are not the person who owed the money, you are unlikely to see it again.

Now, the Government is going to empower these bailiffs to enter your house and take your possessions by force.

There are a record £1.3 trillion in debt and we have a university system that leaves the young hopelessly in debt.

If your son or daughter is a student, sharing a house with perhaps three others, and bailiffs break in to seize goods from one student, they can simply walk off with anyone's possessions, yours too.

Who dreamed up this horrific legislation? The answer is simple - 80 per cent of our legislation comes from the European Union. This particular Bill would have been illegal under British common law. But it fits nicely into European corpus juris.

An Englishman's house is no longer his castle; habeas corpus and common law have almost gone.

When will the British wake up?

Nick Chance, Severn Stoke.