The fight against child poverty

There is a simple way for the government to meet its target to end child poverty by 2020 (Leaders, April 3) - it could raise taxes and redistribute wealth. Instead of looking to America as an economic model where child poverty is a shameful 22.4%, a Labour government should be following the example of Scandinavian countries, where child poverty is very much lower - the rate in Sweden is 2.6%, Norway 3.9% and Finland 4.3%. Even in the "stagnant economies of old Europe" child poverty rates are much lower than ours - France 7.9%, Germany 10.7%.

I am sick of listening to Gordon Brown brag about the so-called success of the British economy. It raises the question of how we measure a successful economy - is it simply about raising the rate of economic growth or is it about improving the lives of our children?

We do not need economic growth to eradicate child poverty, there is wealth enough already. What is needed is the political will to ensure that wealth is more fairly distributed to end the shame of child poverty in this country.
Jan Pietrasik
Edinburgh

Polly Toynbee (Comment, March 31) says that a quarter of children have been lifted out of poverty through tax credits and benefits. But the chancellor's measure of childhood poverty is merely a percentage of the median income. So, if the numbers of people working on low wages significantly increase, down comes the median and - hey presto - thousands of children are lifted out of poverty without receiving an extra penny.
Mary Pimm
Nik Wood
London

Your leader slides too easily from the agenda of making Britain less unequal to that of making Britain fairer. The philosopher John Rawls, known for his advocacy of "justice as fairness", puts his finger on a sine qua non for fairness: basic needs must be met. Without some scientific measure of the income required to meet basic needs, we shall never achieve the fairness for which you plead.

Given that such a measure of income has never been adopted by a British government, it is high time that the research into the basic "cost of living" published by the Family Budget Unit, Z2K and other NGOs be brought into the debate. You conclude by saying: "A consensus on the need for more fairness is welcome. An accord on how we get there would be even better." The first step to achieving such a consensus must be agreement on a measure of basic needs.
Nicholas Sagovsky
Canon theologian, Westminster Abbey

Polly Toynbee is to be applauded for continuing to highlight the appalling inequalities still facing the poorest children in the UK. She is wrong, however, to conclude that in the voluntary sector we are so fearful of courting controversy that we are not prepared to speak out on behalf of the children we serve.

Voluntary sector organisations are passionately committed to helping these children. We also have a critical role to play in ensuring that these issues remain high on the political agenda, given the direct witness we bear to the impact of poverty in children's lives.

We continue to support strongly the End Child Poverty Campaign as part of a consistent message from the sector on the iniquities of child poverty. The call to join with our partners to make a once-in-a-lifetime difference will also be widely welcomed. Toynbee hints at the fact that the relationship between the voluntary sector and government - both nationally and locally - is increasingly close and complex. This must not silence our campaigning voice and the sector must unite to ensure that it does not.
Clare Tickell
Chief executive, NCH

Polly Toynbee is right to call the poverty lobby to account. We are a disparate, disorganised, competing lot that need to get our act together in order to reveal to the public the true and damaging nature of poverty in the UK. There is a powerful coalition of charities, faiths, health professionals and trades unions existing in embryo. It will need organisational drive. Then we could mount a powerful national campaign on the issues that matter most to the poorest citizens.
Rev Paul Nicolson
Chairman, Zacchaeus 2000 Trust