REDDITCH MP Jacqui Smith is quite correct offering congratulations to Kingfisher Centre owners Thornfields for their foresight, hard work and investment since 1997 (Letter from Westminster, December 11).

She states it was New Labour who put in place the foundations of a strong economy that set the investment in motion.

But in 1997, the economy was already on the road to recovery after the dark days of the Exchange Rate Mechanism.

We went into the ERM in October 1990 at an exchange rate unsustainable for the economy and left after 23 months.

During that time, we had the worst recession for 60 years and more than 100,000 companies went bankrupt. There were one million households in negative equity and we lost £68 billion from our gold reserves.

We were forced out of ERM on "Black Wednesday" and almost immediately the economic upturn began, with 10 years of increasing growth, averaging nearly three per cent per year, double that of Germany.

We must not make this mistake again - by entering into monetary union (Euro) we sign away the future prosperity, and therefore employment, of Redditch and the West Midlands.

Mike Sheppard

UK Independence Party

Studley