NEIL Carmichael (Poverty trap is a blight on society – November 4) is right in saying that tax credits are expensive.

However the fault does not lie with those who are on low wages – possibly part time workers, women or those on zero hours contracts – but because wages have not kept pace with the cost of living.

The promised increase in the minimum wage, while welcome, is well below the true living wage (as is, for example, paid by the Labour-led Stroud District Council).

Furthermore, accountants KPMG estimate that, at present, almost six million workers are paid less than even the current minimum wage.

The promise of an additional 15 hours' free childcare has already been deferred with no clear indication of when it will be brought in and in any event only helps those families with children of the appropriate age.

What is clear from research by independent organisations such as the Institute of Fiscal Studies and the Resolution Foundation (chaired by former Tory minister David Willetts) is that the effect of the cuts to tax credits will only increase the levels of poverty in the country.

The IFS found that 8.4 million working age households with at least one person in paid employment would lose an average of £550 each year as a result of the cuts to tax credits even after taking into account the proposed rises in minimum wage.

The Resolution Foundation estimates that as a result of the budget changes: la further 200,000 children – mainly from working households – would fall into poverty in 2016 lthe total number of working households in poverty will reach two million by 2020 lthe number of children in poverty in all households would reach 3.9 million by 2020.

It is good to reduce the deficit but it should not be at the expense of those who, as Patricia Hollis said in the Lords, “strive to do everything we ask of them but now find themselves punished for doing what is right”.

The ‘scourge of poverty’ needs to be tackled but cuts to tax credits are not the way to do it.

Dick Greenslade

Chairman Stroud Constituency Labour Party