THE York-based Joseph Rowntree Trust has got its priorities all wrong as regards asylum seekers, when a new report released by it criticises Government policy on the issue.

There are more than half-a-million failed asylum seekers in Britain, and our Government is right when it states that "it is not right to ask the UK taxpayer to fund - potentially indefinitely - those who choose to remain in the UK when it is open to them to return to a home country".

These people are well aware that they are bogus, and what our terms and conditions are, and they must realise that we are already a small, vastly overcrowded island, that simply cannot accept any more immigrants.

It is not our fault that their homeland, be it in Africa, the Middle East, Asia or eastern Europe, is in such a mess as regards jobs, housing, health care and living standards.

It is high time people like the Joseph Rowntree Trust concerned themselves with the plight of so many suffering English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish folk. Charity begins at home.

David Quarrie, Lynden Way, Holgate, York.