Letter: Home Office adds insult to injury over lone child refugees

Sir; What utter desperation must drive parents to send their children, alone, to foreign countries: perhaps never to see them again. They obviously foresee no hope whatsoever for them at home. But, goodness me, the intolerable annual cost to the British taxpayer is almost two-thirds of the average annual fees paid over the past five years to external consultants by the NHS.

It is heartening to read that the Home Office is planning a crackdown on this "immoral" practice by seeking agreements with some of the main countries involved to stem the flow of unaccompanied children. Some of the regimes concerned will undoubtedly do this very effectively, and may even achieve a final solution to the problem. Whatever happened to Winston Churchill's "open door"?

Yours faithfully,

David Blake

Stirling