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Some experts have already predicted that Mr Brown will be forced to raise taxes or cut spending in the next few years.On the sixth day of the firefighters’ strike, Mr Brown will take a hard line on public sector pay, warning that the extra billions for public services must not be swallowed up by inflationary pay awards.Although most attention will focus on his new economic forecasts, the Chancellor will announce measures to boost enterprise, skills and training, including the setting up of 2,000 “enterprise areas” in rundown parts of the country. He will unveil a £60m scheme under which every school pupil will have five days of “enterprise education” by 2006 after an inquiry by Sir Howard Davies, chairman of the Financial Services Authority.Mr Brown will also promise to crack down on the workshy, who will face the loss of benefits through a more pro-active approach by Jobcentre staff. However, the Chancellor will not announce immediate plans to close a loophole that lets millionaires living in Britain escape big tax bills by saying that the UK is their second home.The Chancellor was warned by British business yesterday that he could no longer use industry as a “cash cow”. The Government must give first priority to business tax cuts.”. Gordon Brown today forecast that despite the biggest global slowdown for almost 30 years, Britain’s economy would grow faster this year than all the other major economies. Public finances are to plunge £20 billion into the red this year, Chancellor Gordon Brown disclosed today.

Gordon Brown blamed the weak world economy today as he hacked back UK growth forecasts. “Looking forward, if anything the forecasts are just a tad optimistic. The former Liverpool and Southampton goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar was ordered to pay more than £1m in legal costs yesterday in the final twist of his ill-fated campaign to clear his name of bribery allegations. The verdict was quashed by the Court of Appeal in January last year and the damages stripped away when the court found there had been a “miscarriage of justice”.He took his case to the House of Lords, which reinstated the original jury verdict but last month awarded damages of £1. The law lords who heard the case said that although it had been proved that Mr Grobbelaar had accepted bribes, the paper had failed to show he had actually let in goals to fix matches.Four of a panel of five law lords said in their ruling that he had acted in a way in which no decent or honest footballer would act and which any right-thinking person would condemn.Lord Bingham, who led the panel, said it would be “an affront to justice” if substantial damages were give to “a man shown to have acted in such flagrant breach of his legal and moral obligations”. Yesterday the House of Lords ordered Mr Grobbelaar, who lives with his wife and two daughters in West Sussex, to pay The Sun two-thirds of its legal costs.Daniel Taylor, solicitor for News International, which publishes The Sun, said: “By awarding costs in favour of The Sun, the House of Lords has sent a clear message to litigants who bring libel actions on a false basis that they may face a huge bill at the end of the action, as well as having their reputations destroyed.”.

Less than two-thirds of court fines in England and Wales are collected, a report by MPs said yesterday, concluding that the payments had become “almost voluntary”. He added: “Fines are a punishment and should in theory deter offenders, but a haphazard approach to their collection is far from a deterrent and must be addressed as a matter of urgency.”The report blamed the Government for failing to improve the collection of fines, which account for about 70 per cent of all sentences. A series of official reports dating back to 1989 have highlighted weaknesses in the system. People living in poorer neighbourhoods were less likely to pay and courts frequently wrote off penalties issued to people living in temporary or bed-and-breakfast accommodation, the MPs said.The committee urged the Lord Chancellor’s Department to examine alternative penalties to fines, such as confiscating property. It said magistrates’ courts had inadequate computer systems to log outstanding fines and some victims were suffering because they only received compensation if an offender paid up.