Minister denies clash with Darling

THE children’s secretary in the UK Government, Ed Balls, yesterday denied reports of a clash with Chancellor Alistair Darling over last Wednesday’s pre-Budget report.

Mr Balls acknowledged, however, that negotiations on his schools budget had gone on until late into the night on Tuesday.

He also disclosed he had backed the option of an increase in national insurance contributions to help tackle the £178billion deficit, rather than a VAT rise which Mr Darling was reported to have favoured.

“We did national insurance because we thought that was a fairer way to make sure that we could protect public services,” Mr Balls told BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show.

Mr Balls, a close ally and former protege of Gordon Brown, emerged as the big winner in the PBR, securing a 0.7% real terms increase in the schools budget, even though Mr Darling was said to have wanted to take a tougher stance to reassure the markets he was committed to tackling the deficit.

Mr Balls played down reports that Mr Brown could go for a general election on March 25 – rather than May 6 as most MPs are expecting – after a YouGov poll for a Sunday paper showed Labour closing the Tory lead to nine points.