Something of a pity that this man doesn’t seem to know what he’s talking about:

Last week’s figures on child poverty (up by 100,000) and increasing
income inequality were, according to Larry Elliott, bad news for Labour
(Only the rich can end child poverty, April 2). For the people at the
bottom end of Britain’s income distribution they were disastrous,
offering little hope of an end to privation, despite living in one of
the richest counties in the world.

Err, look laddie, we’re talking about relative poverty, inequality, not about absolute poverty and privation. Absent those with vastly different problems (drug addiction of mental health problems of the parents, for example) we don’t actually have privation in the UK any more. Inequality, yes, but not privation and destitution.

The now-defunct Low Pay Unit welcomed the introduction of tax credits
to alleviate the worst aspects of poverty, but frequently argued that
they were not a long-term solution to the problem of child poverty. At
worst, they provide an excuse for companies to continue with low pay,
safe in the knowledge that the support of their workers is falling to
the taxpayer.

Err, no. Pay is set in the market. Companies cannot pay less than those market wages and retain their workforce, so of course they don’t. Tax credits are a statement that we as a society don’t think that those market set wages are sufficient.

Globalisation is a common excuse for doing nothing. Low Pay Unit
research regularly identified the recurrence among the lowest paid of,
for example, care workers, cleaners and leisure industry workers. These
are hardly jobs which can be exported.

True, but they can be substituted. As they will be if the prices are raised.

…some recovery of tax-credit expenditure from the companies who make profits on the back of low-paid workers;

And that is truly lunatic. This will make low paid workers more expensive to employ, leading to fewer of them being employed and thus more unemployment, where inequality is greater.