Labour states that lifting the two-child limit on child benefit payments may cost £1.3bn (Labour would keep two-child benefit cap, says Keir Starmer, 16 July). Removing VAT relief from private schools would raise £1.4bn or more. Those private schools whose fees crested £30,000 per pupil currently receive a 20% rebate per child. That’s about £6,000 annually. It seems the wealthy have been receiving generous child benefit support for years – and with no cap if your family has more than two children in education, as some current politicians may have.
Dr Jonathan J Ross
Sheffield
• Following Sir Keir Starmer’s announcement that Labour intends to maintain the cruel and discriminatory two-child benefit cap, I have cancelled my Labour party membership and am giving the subscription to the Child Poverty Action Group instead. How can Labour expect us to subsidise its continuation of an arbitrary anti-child measure that does so much damage to young lives and would cost so little to scrap?
Richard Morgan
Woking, Surrey
• Give Keir Starmer a break! He will be faced with the horrific mess left by the Tories, whose blunders are just making a grim economic situation worse and worse. He’s trying not to make big spending commitments now, because they would just give the corrupt Tory media month after month to distort and lie about them.
Peter Brooker
West Wickham, London
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