I WONDER whether Mr Nigel Carter (Oxford Mail, September 29) is a lawyer? He certainly sounds like one of those human rights lawyers who are making a mockery of planning laws at Dale Farm and strangling our freedom by promoting EU-based human rights at the expense of common sense.

I am well aware of my duties as a councillor, Mr Carter. High on my list is promoting community cohesion and working to drive up educational attainment. I am conscious of the fact attainment in Oxford schools is not good enough and is particularly poor among some ethnic minority groups. There is clear evidence that many ethnic minority children come to school each day to join in lessons in English, but return to a home where English is never spoken. I am afraid these families are doing a grave disservice to their children, who are bound to struggle with their studies if they do not speak, write and think in English at home as well as at school.

How can these children hope to gain qualifications or have a proper chance for higher education and rewarding jobs if they cannot speak the language of the country they live in?

A magistrate friend tells me of a defendant in her court who had lived in this country since 1967 but needed an interpreter because he and his family couldn’t speak English. He lived in a community who only spoke the language of their birth and worked night shifts at the local bakery, also with workers from his country of origin. He had made no attempt to learn English because, as his solicitor remarked, there had been “no need to”.

This is not good for any citizen; it is certainly not good for their children and it is not good for society as a whole if some groups remain inward looking and unable to converse and join with the wider community.

My antipathy to translating council documents into a multiplicity of other languages is not an issue of cost. It is a fear that we are encouraging a cultural and racial apartheid if our citizens do not feel a driving need to learn and use the English language. I am horrified at the time and effort we put into vast box-ticking exercises to satisfy the draconian requirements of numerous pieces of equality and human rights legislation that prevent the application of basic common- sense and decency, which are the essential requisites of building a caring society.

KEITH MITCHELL, Leader of Oxfordshire County Council, County Hall, Oxford