Blame Poverty Not Lone Parents

We challenge the assumption ("Family values are back in the political arena", Leading article, The Independent, 11 December) of a consensus that family breakdown is the cause of all Britain's ills. There is no proven causal link between lone parenthood and long-term poorer outcomes for children. But there is extensive evidence of the damaging effects of poverty.

Family breakdown and poverty need not be inextricably linked. Denmark, for instance, with a similar rate of lone parenthood to Britain, has the lowest child-poverty rate in the EU. A married couple's tax allowance would deepen the relative disadvantage faced by one-parent families and would not tackle poverty.

We welcome the Conservative recognition that lone parenthood "is rarely a lifestyle choice", but lone parents will reserve judgement on whether the Tory war on them is over until they see policies for tackling low income and deprivation, whatever the family type.

CHRIS POND

CHIEF EXECUTIVE, ONE-PARENT FAMILIES, LONDON NW5

Empty Threat to the Jobless Young

A report from the Home Office on crime becoming the career of choice for the young men of the inner cities follows hard on the heels of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions threatening to stop the benefits of the long-term unemployed to get them into work.

They already go without if they fail to turn up at a job interview, and life is little different when the benefits are reinstated at £34.60 a week at 17 and under, £45.50 at 18 to 24 and £57.45 for single, childless adults aged between 25 and 60, all rates to be increased by £1.05, £1.35 and £1.70 a week in April. Many do not apply because the money is not worth the hassle in a very expensive economy.

John Hutton believes he is driving them all into legitimate work, much of which is poverty-paid, but other sources of income are found; the Asbos proliferate and more and more prisons are built.

So the threat to stop benefits that are already painfully inadequate, or non-existent, will be ridiculed on the streets of Britain.

REV PAUL NICOLSON

CHAIRMAN, ZACCHAEUS 2000 TRUST, LONDON N17

Hutton launches wide-ranging Welfare Review

John Hutton, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, today launched a long-term review of the Government's welfare to work strategy to tackle economic inactivity and promote social mobility. The review is to be led by Jim Murphy, Minister for Work, with additional advisory input from David Freud, chief executive of the Portland Trust. The review aims to address what Hutton describes as a 'can work, won't work culture' and will focus on assessing what has worked over the last ten years, and make recommendations for the next decade.

Mr Hutton said that 'the Welfare State should give people the opportunity and support to overcome the barriers they face. But that can not be a passive one-way relationship. It requires individuals themselves to respond; to meet the responsibility this places on them.' He added that 'if we are to break the cycle of benefit dependency, we need to ask whether we should expect more from those who remain on Job Seekers Allowance for long periods of time in return for the help we provide.'