Your report on the budget (Osborne strategy risks being blown off course, 25 March) gave a rather rosy view of the impact of the cuts on the poor. The chart shows income falling by 6.5% for the poorest tenth and only 3% for the richest tenth by 2014-15, but it only covers tax and benefit changes. The biggest component in the restructuring is the cutback in service spending, £36bn, against £30bn in tax rises and £18bn in benefit cuts. Much of this comes from council spending.
It's hard to work out how the loss of Sure Start or home care for the elderly or local libraries or swimming pools or bus services hits the pockets of different groups, but you can be sure it matters much more to people who can't afford private alternatives. The net effect is that real living standards at the bottom will go down much more sharply than your chart implies. It is this move to a radically more unequal, uncaring, competitive and market-centred society that lies at the heart of the coalition programme.
University of Kent
• The budget was a very grown-up affair. In fact, it was almost entirely child free. Neither the chancellor, nor the leader of the opposition, spent time reflecting upon how the budget would impact on children's lives. This is shameful. The chancellor said the budget was about growth, but the largest growth we are likely to see is in the number of children living in poverty; 3.5 million children live in poverty now and the Institute of Fiscal Studies forecasts that an extra 1 million will join them by 2013. The government predicts that a combination of measures will lift 50,000 children out of poverty over the next two years. This is a drop in the ocean of the number of children who need help. But it gets worse; the Treasury admits its 50,000 figure is based on an uncertain economic future that could be undermined by slow growth and inflation.
Children's futures are now more uncertain than ever. New apprenticeships, the pupil premium and the investment in early years are welcome. But raising the income-tax threshold to benefit poorer families while retaining VAT at 20% gives with one hand and takes away with the other. With less than nine years to go to fulfil the cross-party commitment to ending child poverty by 2020, it is well past the time to bring children's best interests to the fore of our financial decision-making. We need action – and money – to tackle child poverty now.
Anita Tiessen
Deputy executive director, Unicef UK