One would have thought that, as a councillor, David Pearson would have checked the law before going into print with regards to the law on Christmas crackers (‘This new EU rule is crackers’, Letters, December 17).

It is not a new law and it is not an EU law.

It is, in fact, not illegal for a shop worker to sell Christmas crackers to anyone under 16.

So Trading Standards officers will not have to waste their time monitoring how retailers enforce the law.

Nor will shop workers face a fine or time in prison for selling Christmas crackers to any person under 16.

The law governing Christmas crackers and explosives in general goes back to 1875.

It has been changed a number of times since, as regards the age at which people can purchase explosives.

But at no times has it been illegal for a person under 16 to purchase Christmas crackers.

What it is illegal is to sell a person under 16 cracker snaps. That is the device inside the cracker which causes it to snap.

It also only applies to where the cracker snap is sold as a separate item, and not where it is sold as part of a complete item.

That is, whilst it is not illegal to sell a Christmas cracker to a person under 16, it would be illegal to take the cracker snap out of the cracker and sell that as an item on its own to a person under 16!

All that the recent change in the law has done is raise the minimum age at which a person can purchase cracker snaps from 12 to 16, thereby bringing it in line with the rest of Europe.

RAY HOPPKROFFT, Barker Street, Todmorden.