Campaigners say pledge to end child poverty ‘fading fast’

Campaigners responded with fury to a small increase in tax credits for children, saying that the pledge to end child poverty was “fading fast”.

The child element of family tax credits will rise by only £20 over inflation from next April as extra money was instead ploughed into employment programmes for the long-term jobless.

“The money targeted on the children struggling most during the recession amounts to less each week than the cost of a pint of milk. It is disgraceful to give such a pittance,” said Kate Green, chief executive of Child Poverty Action Group. “The Budget urgently needed to give targeted help to struggling families who will spend straight away and give an immediate boost to the economy. Low-income communities have also been denied the extra spending power that would have helped their local businesses stay afloat.”

Martin Narey, the chief executive of Barnardo’s, said that the poorest families had been failed by the Government. “Poor families were entitled to believe they would be helped. That help, 38p a week per child, is derisory. The poorest children have been abandoned.”

An extra £100 will be paid into the Child Trust Funds for babies with disabilities. An extra £200 will be paid to those with severe disabilities.

North Sea oil operators given incentives to invest more

The oil industry offered a cautious welcome to measures designed to shore up North Sea investment, which has fallen because of weaker prices and the credit crunch. New tax incentives are designed to ensure two billion more barrels, worth $100 billion at current prices, can be extracted from smaller fields in the North Sea that are only marginally economic at the moment. These include tax exemptions so that smaller operators pay corporation tax of 30 per cent rather than the 50 per cent charged on most fields.The industry group Oil & Gas UK said: “This Budget is a step in the right direction.” Much of the infrastructure in the North Sea – pipelines, drilling rigs and platforms – is so old that without sustained investment it will quickly deteriorate.

BBC licence fund will pay for faster broadband for all

About 3.8 million homes will get faster internet access with the help of £250 million of public money.

Ministers had already pledged to connect every home to broadband as part of the Government’s Digital Britain review, but no cash had been set aside. The minimum speed will be 2 megabits, the fastest transmission rate considered affordable – although last week Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, indicated that ministers were looking at spending more than £1 billion of public money to ensure that every home was able to receive broadband of about 50 megabit speed.

Details of the scheme need to be worked out, and it is not clear if the money will simply be used to help to upgrade BT’s network, which is the only one capable of reaching every home in the country.

Money is being taken from the £600 million BBC licence fee funds that will pay for homes to be switched to digital television as the analog signal is switched off. About £250 million is thought to be surplus, because more people had already upgraded to digital than was envisaged.

A spokesman for the BBC Trust said that the corporation was happy to work with ministers because none of the money was being diverted from spending on radio or television programmes.

£950m will correct blunders on sixth-formers and colleges

Almost £1 billion pledged by the Chancellor will solve two embarrassing problems for education ministers.

A funding shortfall had left thousands of teenagers with no sixth-form places this September and a catalogue of errors meant building schemes had ground to a halt at further education colleges.

Alistair Darling said schools and colleges would benefit from an extra £250 million this year, to fund 54,000 more sixth-form places, plus another £400 million for 2010-11. The Budget included an extra £300 million to fund college building projects over the next two years. It comes after the Learning and Skills Council, a government quango, encouraged colleges to apply for grants to rebuild their estates – then could not cope with demand.

Science research ordered to shift towards boosting economy

More than £100 million of the science budget is to be refocused on research with economic potential. While the budget is ringfenced and will grow to almost £6 billion by 2011, efficiency savings of £106 million delivered by research councils are to be reinvested in areas such as green energy and medicine.

John Denham, the Innovation Secretary, has announced that Britain must concentrate its investment on research that can improve economic growth.

Senior scientists said they were worried that the initiative would limit the independence of the research councils. Lord Rees of Ludlow, president of the Royal Society, said: “We do not undervalue economic benefit but it is important that the science budget encourages bright people to do the research they want to do.”

Nick Dusic, of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, said: “This decision destroys the idea the research councils operate at arm’s length from government.”

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