SIR - UKIP's Jason Smith's letter (T&A, June 27) says nothing new, save for trying to twist the simple fact that the Committee of the Regions is indeed a consultative body meeting six times a year and made up of people elected to public office.

That the recommendations of a consultative body can be ignored is true; it happens in the UK all the time.

But it is not serious to suggest that the EU would set up such a body to just to ignore its opinions. What recommendations have been made and ignored that has been detrimental to our region since 1994?

No Regional Assembly has been imposed on Yorkshire, for example.

The truth is that UKIP is almost paranoid in its criticisms of everything relating to the EU. It misleads and misinforms the public but, as recent elections show, people are not fooled.

UKIP would do better to ask why the cost of living in the UK is some 30 per cent higher than in Europe and yet our European neighbours enjoy a better quality of life.

There is something to be learned here.

Stuart Baker, Markham Croft, Leeds