• I FIND it incredible we have so many shortages in our labour supply. The streets are full of young people from dawn to dusk. Why can’t we harness this ready supply?

Often, when I was at school, we would take up work picking fruit or vegetables. There is no doubt the work was monotonous but it provided us with pocket money and an experience which was undoubtedly valuable in later years.

Presumably some people find it unnecessary to take up this kind of employment, so one must assume the state or other agency provides an income sufficient to avoid doing boring or repetitive jobs.

Why must we expect people from other countries, poorer than ours, to do these jobs that ought to be done by home-grown workers?

We have some nine million “economically inactive”. One would expect that some of these might find it expedient to involve themselves.

I WALKER, W10