SIR - Tony Eaves (Worcester News, February 6) wonders how many people really know how an EU directive becomes law in the UK. I am happy to enlighten him.
EU Directives do not "slip into UK law by default". Directives are scrutinised extensively, then shaped and later signed off by both the European Parliament and the European Council. If they do approve it, then EU Member States are then by definition bound by it.
But a directive is only a template for legislation: it still needs to be transposed into national law via the national Parliament in each country in order to take effect.
Insufficient scrutiny back home is indeed a real issue, but not as described by Tony Eaves. There is no check in Westminster before a Prime Minister signs up in the first place to something that is perceived by many to be fundamentally against the national interest.
Secondly, there is the problem of Whitehall. The risk now is that with the increasing numbers of bureaucrats on the UK government payroll since Labour came to power - all trying to find something to do - the problem of excessive red-tape can only get worse.
PHILIP BUSHILL-MATTHEWS, MEP
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