£400m computer network 'for all'

Budget debate

David Blunkett yesterday said he was spending an extra £400 million on a network of computer centres to provide access to information technology training for every community in Britain, as announced in Tuesday's Budget.

The Education and Employment Secretary said in the Commons Budget debate that it was the first step towards bridging the gap between 'the computer haves and have nots'.

Up to 800 centres are planned in England in schools, colleges, libraries and business settings.

Other incentives in the package include a £20 million scheme to provide subsidised loans to teachers to help them buy computers to use at home, and tax relief for employees who borrow computers from their workplace.

In the resumed debate on Chancellor Gordon Brown's tax and spending measures, Mr Blunkett dismissed as misleading press reports that all teachers were to be given a laptop computer. 'We are intent on helping people to purchase or loan computers for use in their work as teachers, as many companies are now doing,' he said.

He warned MPs that the greatest danger facing the country in the decade ahead was that those with access to IT would forge ahead while those who did not would find themselves excluded. The Budget would help modernise Britain and 'narrow the gap between those who have and those who have not'.

But the shadow education secretary, David Willetts, protested: 'Government propaganda about the Budget is going to be distributed at taxpayers' expense.'

He was referring to Tory claims that a leaflet explaining the Budget measures for the public and produced with taxpayers' money amounted to 'Labour Party propaganda'. The Opposition has referred the issue to the public spending watchdog, Sir John Bourn, Auditor General.

Mr Willetts said there was nothing new for education in the Budget and added that this was even admitted in the Red Book. Quoting from the government document, he said: 'Expenditure limits are essentially unchanged from those set out in the Comprehensive Spending Review in July 1998.'

He dismissed the £2,000 'gift' for every school to buy books as a classic example of Mr Blunkett's approach to education funding: 'Little penny packets of money allocated to schools for specific purposes that he chooses.'

Mr Willetts said the Government did not trust schools to operate their own budgets and instead was interested only in funding 'gimmicks'.

The Conservatives supported any measure that would strengthen IT in schools, he said, but doubted any of the Government's measures would do that.

He told MPs that when the Tories left office in May 1997 the UK was among the world leaders in IT in education. 'All we have had since then has been a classic example of announcements and re-announcements. But what we haven't seen is any rigour in the implementation of these announcements.'

Don Foster, Liberal Democrats spokesman, said the 'biggest gimmick' of the Budget was the 10p starting rate of income tax. The 1p cut in the basic rate to 22p should have been spent on education. 'It would have a direct impact on educational standards because we do know the link between educational standards and poverty.'

He claimed that the help for teachers to obtain laptop computers would only mean a 4 per cent increase in the numbers with access to laptops, up from 2.5 per cent.