Scale back youngster poverty with compassion and equity | Baby advantages

I learn Archbishop Stephen Cottrell’s article with compassion, but in addition frustration (I’ve seen the extent of kid poverty within the UK and I say this: the two-child profit cap should go, 1 September) . As somebody from the squeezed center, I work arduous, stay modestly and make cautious decisions. We share one automobile, skip holidays and stretch each pound. I haven’t dominated out having one other youngster – however the price of residing makes it really feel more and more out of attain.

I agree no youngster ought to go hungry. However we should additionally ask: is it truthful to anticipate taxpayers to subsidise bigger households when many people restrict our personal as a result of we merely can’t afford extra? If we take away all boundaries, the place does that depart these of us who plan fastidiously and nonetheless wrestle?

I see households doing their greatest, however I additionally see decisions that make me surprise the place private accountability matches in. The 2-child profit cap isn’t excellent, but it surely’s a line within the sand. With out it, we danger deepening inequality – not simply between wealthy and poor however between those that stay inside their means and people who don’t. We’d like compassion, but in addition equity. And equity means recognising that hard-working households like mine are already stretched. Elizabeth Joseph Portsmouth

Archbishop Stephen Cottrell and your readership ought to be conscious that youngster poverty is just not “hovering”. To our collective disgrace, via a succession of administrations, youngster poverty has remained at across the 30% mark for many years. Poverty ranges are a political selection and youngster poverty is a specific scar on the UK’s political policymaking.

The collective disgrace is that the dimensions of kid poverty is thought, its persistence over 50 years has been monitored, the hurt inflicted is nicely documented and reasonably priced options are recognized. The hesitation over ending the two-child profit cap ought to rely as a humiliation in England when in Scotland there may be the Scottish youngster fee to low-income households, begun in 2021, with funds at present at £27.15 per week.Carl ParsonsGreenwich, London

I used to be reassured by the article from the archbishop of York. For 12 years I volunteered with a neighborhood charity that supplied recommendation, play schemes and, latterly, meals parcels to households in insecure housing. These parcels grew to become increasingly more essential every year.

We helped a few of the most impoverished households, these on “no recourse to public funds”, subsisting on lower than £40 per week per youngster and nothing for adults. This mission has now needed to shut for lack of funds. For a complete child-poverty technique, the federal government has to think about not solely its direct insurance policies however funding to the native authorities that clear up after nationwide provision fails. Ruth Valentine London

I learn with dismay and disbelief that households residing in poverty, incomes lower than £9,518 is not going to be eligible totally free childcare (Poorer households could not profit as 30 hours free childcare begins in England, consultants say, 1 September) and but mother and father incomes as much as £100,000 a 12 months are eligible. Who on earth thinks it is a appropriate coverage for youngsters already residing in poverty?

Absolutely, because the archbishop writes, it’s in all our pursuits that every one youngsters have a good begin in life. It’s well-known that youngsters disadvantaged in adolescence by no means atone for their better-resourced friends. No surprise help is draining away from this Labour authorities.Helen KayEdinburgh

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