CYP Now - Interview: Oliver Letwin MP, head of policy, The Conservative Party- More power to the people

Despite announcing last week that the Conservative Party was committed to the Government's target of ending child poverty by 2020, and that he is in agreement with how the Government has tackled the issue so far, the party's head of policy Oliver Letwin is adamant that increasing child benefit and tax credits is not going to achieve the target in the long term.

"We're not making an argument about changing the path the Chancellor ison because the tax credit system has to be part of the answer," Letwinsays. "But our argument is that there are children growing up infamilies that are not getting in-work tax credits - for example,families that have chaotic lifestyles involving alcohol dependency."

Letwin believes that increasing the amount of financial help to suchfamilies will not help them to address their problems. "There's no doubtthat there are very many families with children who are struggling onless than 60 per cent of the median income who need financial support,but dealing with deep deprivation is not done by being cleverer aboutthe way we distribute money," he says.

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