Sir.-With regard to the article about taxi fares for asylum seekers, I agree with Paul Harvey when he says there are more important issues surrounding immigration and asylum.

Our current system, as this case illustrates, affords the opportunity to "disappear", which makes a mockery of the law and helps to make Britain a popular destination. This in turn creates new social problems in which illegal workers are vulnerable to exploitation and compete unfairly with our own least-well-off citizens.

I believe we must have a firm but fair asylum policy. Asylum seekers must be closely monitored during the application process and the best way of achieving this is to detain them in reception centres while their cases are being considered.

I am pleased to see that the three main parties appear to be willing to at least debate this topic in public - but can they now tell us what they propose to do about it rather than continually blaming each other while the problem remains unresolved?

-Pete Lewington, Homesteads Road, Kempshott, Basingstoke.