Brown's 10-year plan
Gordon Brown is today mapping out his personal manifesto for Britain, beginning with more help for working mothers. The Chancellor will unveil policies stretching "beyond Labour's third term" to well after Tony Blair retires.
In his eighth pre-Budget report, he is set to outline a 10-year plan for a huge expansion of childcare, in addition to doubling paid maternity leave. There will be another decade-long plan to re-equip the workforce with skills and qualifications to compete against rising economic powers such as China.
Speaking exclusively to the Evening Standard before his speech, Mr Brown said he wanted to "rediscover a Britain of ambition and aspiration".
He urged more investment "in the early years of our children and in the potential of every young person and adult" to make
Britain "the best place to grow up in, to study, to start a business and to work".
His "British decade" timetable is twice as long as Mr Blair's five-year plans for Whitehall departments and implies his vision will endure long after the Prime Minister quits No10 some time during the next parliament.
Mr Brown was speaking against a backdrop of the toughest pressure on public finances since Labour came to power. Some forecasters claim he faces a ?10-?12billion black hole in his figures and steeply rising borrowing. He is expected to tell MPs he is confident that his forecasts are more accurate and that his "golden rule" that the books must balance over the economic cycle will be met without difficulty.
Despite a squeeze on Whitehall he is tipped to forgo ?750million in petrol duty by scrapping a planned 1.92p a litre, or 10p a gallon, rise in petrol duty. That would make pump prices slightly cheaper than they were during the 1999 fuel protests. Mr Brown's room for manoeuvre was squeezed by an announcement of an extra ?520million to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Among other announcements being tipped were:
- A package worth up to £1billion to local authorities to stave off increases in council tax bills just before the general election. But rather than a simple handout, it may also involve measures to reduce the burden of centrallyimposed spending.
- More affordable childcare to help parents cope with the decline of the traditional nine-to-five working day.
- Extending maternity pay, currently ?102.80, from six months to a year, with fathers possibly allowed to share in it.
- New moves to bear down on the cost of incapacity benefit and help claimants back to work following concern over record numbers on long-term sick leave.
- A clampdown on accountancy firms that offer "dodgy" tax avoidance schemes to big business.
Mr Brown's Commons speech was expected to be accompanied by a fat bundle of reports, including a detailed study of ways to cut the burden of red tape regulation on industry that could benefit small firms.
There was no sign that Whitehall expected Mr Brown to lift the burden on middle-class families of either inheritance tax or stamp duty on house purchases.
A centrepiece was expected to be a study of global economic challenges, setting out the Treasury's view of what must be done to compete against China, India and other growing Far East economies.
