Peter Valentine is, yet again, extolling the virtues of that corrupt entity, the European Union (Mailbox, August 12).

He calls into question George West's figure of £7.6 billion cost of our EU membership by saying that £6 billion net is closer to the actual cost .

According to the chairman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, Mr West's figure is much nearer the mark .

According to this year's budget plans, current spending will rise from £600.6 billion (2009/10) to £692.7 billion in 2014/15, a rise of £1,500 for every man, woman and child in the country.

Furthermore, total spending, including capital, will rise from, £669.3 billion in 2009/10 to £737.5 billion, a rise of £68.2 billion. It is now 15 years since the auditors last "signed off" the account books of the EU, the reason being the amount of fraud and unaccountability EU spending.

The Public Accounts Committee chairman said of the EU last year: "Prominent among these unresolved difficulties is the high level of error in some key budget areas. A major factor leading to error is the inherent complexity of programme expenditure in some areas."

The EU Commission has proposed that the only solution is to tolerate higher levels of error in the more complex areas of expenditure. So, if you can't work within the fiscal rules, open them to even more "error", more fraud, and more auditors refusing to sign off the accounts !

In 2007 (the last report), member states reported irregularities to the EU Anti-Fraud Office totalling 1,425 million euros, including suspected frauds of 316 million euros (an irregularity is a failure to comply with the Commission's regulations and fraud is an irregularity committed intentionally which constitutes a criminal offence).

There are many more instances of hidden costs to Britain due to its ever increasing links to the EU such as the £124 billion it has cost us since 1998 in EU regulations – the Government's own figures .

Let's dump this monster before it bleeds us all dry .

James A Hutchinson, Leicester.