I READ with interest a recent letter from the region’s Labour MEPs about the Ebola crisis in Africa (HAS, Oct 2).

The UK has one of the largest overseas aid budgets in the world.

We need to make sure the money we are giving away goes to the right people so that it can make a genuine difference.

Millions of people around the world live in poverty and are at threat from disease and countless other crises.

Even here in the UK, millions of our pensioners face the daily choice between heating and eating. Meanwhile, in the past ten years the UK has donated money to a list of countries that includes world powers such as India, Russia and Argentina.

The crisis facing Africa today is a great tragedy and I hope we can start to get on top of this awful disease before it spreads any further.

We could do a lot more to tackle this crisis, and countless other issues, if we fixed our broken and unfit-for-purpose foreign aid budget.

Jonathan Arnott MEP, Ukip, North-East region