Sir, Poverty is not a matter of “definition” or a “linguistic trick”, as Jamie Whyte writes (Comment, April 5). It is a fact of life in today’s Britain. Our recent research shows that 7.5 million adults — 3.8 million of them from solid professional backgrounds — live on less than £118 a week before deducting housing costs and struggle daily to pay for the bare necessities of life.

We know from our beneficiaries that they go hungry in order to feed their children, that they lack money for public transport or for fuel. The emotional impact cannot be underestimated. Utility bills, breakages of boilers or kettles become a disheartening worry — there’s no money to replace them. With no end in sight, with no hope in the future, despair and isolation from the rest of society are the most commonly felt emotions.

That’s the reality of poverty in the industrialised world.

Yours faithfully,
JONATHAN WELFARE,
Chief Executive,
Elizabeth Finn Trust,
1 Derry Street, W8 5HY.
April 5.

From the Reverend Paul Nicolson

Sir, If Jamie Whyte had spent a large part of the past 35 years working with the households receiving the lowest incomes, or even no income at all, he would have met many people like 51-year-old Jean.

She has learning difficulties, chronic anxiety and panic attacks. Her child has grown up and left home, so she is back on the single person’s unemployment benefit of £56.20 a week, with her rent and council tax paid by other benefits. There are rent and council tax arrears from a failed attempt to hold down a job, leaving her with £36.42 a week on which to survive.

The robust research of the Family Budget Unit and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine shows that there is a bare minimum income after rent and council tax with which any reasonable person can buy a nutritious diet and all other necessities. Anything less than that is poverty. Jean’s income is less than half of it.

Yours sincerely,
PAUL NICOLSON
(Chairman),
Zacchaeus 2000 Trust,
93 Campbell Road, N17 0AX.
zacchaeus2000@blueyonder.co.uk
April 5.

From Mr Ian J. Hartill

Sir, Adam Smith thought more clearly about poverty than does Jamie Whyte. In An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) Smith wrote:

By necessaries I understand, not only the commodities which are indispensibly necessary for the support of life, but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without.

That was a clear expression of the concept, now accepted in all advanced countries although with variations in its definition, that poverty is relative and deprivation, even though not absolute, is indecent in society.

Jamie Whyte seems to want to return to the unfettered market mechanisms of the 19th century as the determinant of the way in which wealth should be distributed in society.

In the 20th century came the acceptance that the State must take action to reduce poverty. The introduction of the old age pension in 1908 was a clear example of redistribution of income.

However, it was not until the end of the Second World War that the concept of relative poverty became widely accepted by all the main political parties. It has led to the introduction of, for example, family allowances and minimum wages. It is not self-evident that the consequential redistribution of income that such measures entail has hindered the growth of the economy.

Yours faithfully,
IAN J. HARTILL,
10 Hookwater Road,
Chandler’s Ford,
Hampshire SO53 5PR.
April 5.

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