The Tories lodged a formal complaint with Sir John Bourn the Comptroller and Auditor

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The Tories lodged a formal complaint with Sir John Bourn, the Comptroller and Auditor General, about more than a million leaflets issued by the Treasury summarising the tax changes. The Chancellor, Gordon Brown, had wanted to send the leaflets to every one of Britain's 24 million households, but decided to issue just 1.25 million to Post Offices, libraries and universities after Treasury officials objected.But Francis Maude, the Shadow Chancellor, said that the leaflet was still a misuse of money because it gave a biased and inaccurate picture of the Budget.In a letter to Sir John, who heads the National Audit Office, Mr Maude said that the leaflet omitted key measures that were likely to prove unpopular, such as higher stamp duty, fuel taxes and alterations to national insurance contributions for the self-employed.Information about the new children's tax credit did not say that it would be tapered for higher-rate taxpayers. PARLIAMENT'S FINANCIAL watchdog has been called on to investigate claims that the Government wasted taxpayers' money on misleading "propaganda" about the Budget. "Our priority is to run a successful election on 4 May 2000 so we will be looking at systems which have proved extremely reliable in national or regional elections elsewhere," he said.. If the measures work for London, they could be introduced to national elections.However, Mr Raynsford stressed that no changes would be introduced unless they were rigorously tested first. Both techniques are aimed at removing completely the need for re-counts that often delay results in marginal seats for hours. The new authority will be modern, streamlined and efficient and we should work towards a voting system to match," Mr Raynsford said.The London elections will be more complex than normal polls, with voters facing a proportional system for mayor, single-member constituency assembly members and top-up assembly members.As well as computer keypad voting booths,the Government is also considering introducing electronic counting machines to replace the current method of counting by hand. In a written Parliamentary reply, Mr Raynsford revealed that the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions had yesterday invited tenders for the work in the Tenders Electronic Daily publication."This would enable votes in the first Greater London Authority elections to be electronically recorded and counted.

The new system is set to be tested in the elections for London's Mayor and Assembly in May next year, Nick Raynsford, the Minister for London, announced in the House of Commons. Mr Raynsford told MPs that he was looking into the possibility of using new systems to improve the efficiency of the voting process. Traditional pencil and ballot paper voting could be replaced by European- style computerised booths that allow electors to cast their vote at the touch of a button. ELECTRONIC VOTING could be introduced to Britain for the first time next year under radical plans announced by the Government yesterday to speed up election results. In five to 10 years time, people would wonder why more money was not invested in cleaner fuel technology "rather than penalising our road haulage industry", he said.Mr Pearson said: "We are spending pounds 6.1bn as a Government on research and development - less than 2.5 per cent of that is going to the experimental development gap."If we are going to get better at turning inventions into innovations and commercially exploiting them, then we have really got to look at the main funding streams in Britain," Mr Pearson added.. He claimed helping teachers to obtain laptop computers would mean only a 4 per cent increase in the numbers with access to laptops, from 2.5 per cent.Ian Pearson, the Labour MP for Dudley South expressed concern that road hauliers would suffer from the increased duty on fuel. "On top of that the Treasury have allocated an additional pounds 561m this week," he said.Mr Foster said his party welcomed extra money for books but suggested schools should have been allowed to decide how to spend the extra money themselves. The Government did not trust schools to operate their own budgets and instead was interested only in funding "gimmicks", he added.

Some Labour backbenchers are worried it will be hard to persuade party members to support a 1p cut in the basic rate of income tax rather than spend money on health and education.Don Foster, the Liberal Democrat Education spokesman, said instead of cutting the basic rate of income tax to 22p, an investment in education would have a "direct impact on educational standards" because of the link between poor education and poverty.Mr Blunkett insisted there was a "crucial flaw" in this argument because the money was not part of a pounds 19bn sum given to education last summer. But, during yesterday's debate on Budget education spending, Mr Willetts said that the extra cash had already been outlined as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review in July 1998.The pounds 2,000 "gift" for every school to buy books were a "classic example", he said. GORDON BROWN'S failure to invest more money in education in Tuesday's Budget came under fire yesterday from all sides of the House. David Willetts, the Conservative Education spokesman, led the attack, complaining that expenditure limits were essentially unchanged from those set previously. But the Secretary of State for Education, David Blunkett rebutted the claims, saying low-income families could soon be able to buy computers at discount prices in a drive to bridge the gap between the "computer haves and have nots".He added that the initiative was part of a pounds 400m package announced in the Budget to encourage greater computer literacy and a pounds 20m scheme was being set up to provide subsidised loans for teachers to buy computers. "That's a welcome trend", he said, "and we will do all we can to promote it". Vote Labour - and we'll put up the price of your Sunday roast..