Home Blogs & Views Birmingham Mail Columnists Maureen Messent

Benefits policy that dooesn't add up

Dec 6 2007

I'M puzzled at government policy to halve child poverty by 2010.

Recent numbers of children below the recognised breadline have risen by 100,000 in the past year to 2.8m.

This dismal scenario can never change. Throwing money at the feckless and daft ensures merely that it is spent on cigarettes, clothes and booze.

The sole way to ease the plight of children used by their scrounging and unemployed parents is to dispense with cash altogether and use a voucher system.

Who are these children, anyway? What counts as the deprivations they are said to suffer? And why is it their mothers always have large TVs and the latest in domestic gadgetry?

I feel I'm missing something here.

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