Letter: Route to social justice still unclear

YOUR report on the Commission on Social Justice ('Labour is 'thinking the unthinkable' on tax cuts', 4 July) may have given a misleading impression of the stage which the commission has reached. We are only now embarking on the detailed analysis of policy options, and have reached no conclusions. In a discussion paper to be published on 19 July we say that: 'The tax-benefit system must create incentives for paid employment and help meet the needs of those performing unpaid work.' We have yet to decide how this objective can best be met.

Second, your report states that the commission's recommendations, to be published in September 1994, 'are likely to be adopted as Labour Party policy'. Naturally, we hope the Labour Party, and others, will agree with our conclusions. But the commission is an independent body, established on the initiative of the Leader of the Opposition under the auspices of the Institute for Public Policy Research, and has no responsibility for Labour's policy. That remains a matter for the Labour Party.

Sir Gordon Borrie

Patricia Hewitt

Commission on Social Justice

London WC2