Universal basic income, not child benefit, is key to alleviating poverty | Letters

Child benefit gives more to rich families than poorer one, writes Lynda Mountford; while Wendy Dear says that child poverty is a serious issue in Cambridgeshire

Polly Toynbee (Beveridge was cradle-to-grave: who could sell that these days?, 26 February) recommends focusing funds on child benefit as “the best investment for future national wellbeing”. What child benefit did was to convert a regressive system of child tax allowances – which gave more to rich families than to poor ones – into cash payments of the same amount per child to all. Similarly, what a universal basic income, which Toynbee rejects, could do is to convert our currently regressive tax allowances into a regular and reliable cash-in-hand payment for all adults. This would give everyone an income floor on which to build (definitely a Beveridgean concept) – thus taking away some of the precariousness from the lives of the poor while at the same time taking away from what Toynbee calls “the comfortable” a little of the “handout” they now receive. It might even go just a tiny way towards countering for the rich “the moral hazard” of greed. Why not invest in all our citizens now?
Dr Lynda Mountford
St Albans, Hertfordshire

• Kimberly McIntosh’s points about a cohesive society were right on target (Theresa May is PM. We should not have to rely on Stormzy, 26 February). But one, about Cambridge, was not. Research by the charity End Child Poverty, published by Cambridgeshire Community Foundation, suggests that after housing costs are taken into account, the percentage of children living in poverty in the county is startling: 22.1% in Cambridge city, 26.6% in Fenland, and 29.8% in Peterborough. The answer to her question (Were child poverty endemic in Cambridge instead of Tower Hamlets would we not see a stronger response from the government?) is no. According to a 2015 county council report, “children growing up in poverty achieve less well [in Cambridgeshire] than almost anywhere else in the country”.

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