THE Government is in favour of joining the euro-zone "in principle". Yet strangely I cannot obtain an answer from Peter Hain, minister for Europe, as to his party's policy on the following.

Do we want our savings, assets, taxation, interest rates, exchange rate, public spending decisions, the transfer of our gold and money reserves to the ECB in Frankfurt, and in fact the complete direction of the UK economy to be controlled by people we cannot vote for now, or at any time in the future?

I wonder what a 'minister for Europe' is for if he is incapable of answering this simple question on the political implications of joining the euro.

G Wood,

Democracy Movement,

Station Road,

Poppleton, York.

Updated: 10:20 Tuesday, April 16, 2002