SIR – We all know that Health and Safety has overtaken common sense to a ridiculous level, but their current insistence that volunteers running soup kitchens have to have food hygiene certificates and their methods of production have to be up to restaurant standards is ridiculous.

These people, out of the goodness of their own hearts, are feeding those unfortunate enough to have to live on the streets and eat from skips and dustbins.

These volunteers probably feed their own families every day and will feed the homeless to the same standards.

How long before the Women’s Institute is stopped from holding its renowned baking and jam-making competitions because the judges will not be able to sample food that has not been prepared in an approved kitchen by certified personnel?

Am I and everyone else to be banned from serving food to family and friends because my kitchen does not meet professional standards and I am not qualified to prepare food for others?

I suggest that the H&S executives who write these rules are banned from eating in the family home until their own premises meet the required criteria, or better still sack the lot and bring back common sense.

Keith Rayner, Laburnum Drive, Baildon