Letter: Child benefit and Labour

YOUR front-page story last week ('Labour axe over child benefit', 5 December) may have given a misleading impression of the work of the Commission on Social Justice.

The commission has not yet made a decision about the future of child benefit. A new paper to be published by the commission tomorrow lays out options for the future, scrapping child benefit and leaving parents with no right to financial support to cover the costs of child-rearing is not one of them.

I should add that the commission has no status in Labour's policy machinery. Although instigated by John Smith, we have no power to make Labour Party policy.

Sir Gordon Borrie

Chairman, Commission on Social Justice, London WC2