SIR – British taxpayers are are handing out £1 million a week to EU immigrants whose children live abroad.

The payments include child benefit which was stripped last month from more than one million families.

This amount will no doubt rocket come January 1 when many Romanians and Bulgarians get free access to the UK jobs market In Poland the average weekly child benefit amount is £5, compared with £20.30 here for the first child, and £13.40 for every other child.

It is surely absurd to carry on this at a time when UK taxpayers are being asked to tighten their belts.

Most EU countries have the sense to insist that the child must be resident in that country in order to qualify.

Isn’t it time we did the same?

G B DIPPER

Leominster