The new education secretary

Tony Blair has become locked in a dispute with the newest member of his Cabinet over welfare payments to the sick and disabled.

Providers of low-cost pensions and savings should not levy the maximum annual charge of 1.5 per cent unless they can prove they are offering advice about the products, the Government said yesterday.

The Monday Interview: Financial Secretary to the Treasury

Lord Penrose yesterday threw the door open to Parliament to decide whether Equitable Life policyholders should be due compensation, as MPs rounded on Ruth Kelly for her "callous" treatment of his findings and "washing her hands" of policyholders' troubles.

Ruth Kelly, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, yesterday tried to head-off calls for compensation for Equitable Life policyholders by holding private briefings meetings with MPs before a public hearing of the Treasury Select Committee.

They have found the House macho and hostile, the media unfriendly and the spin doctors vicious

Treasury survey shows that only 11 per cent of firms know single currency start date

AS a blues guitarist, Eric Clapton is God. As a person, he is a disaster area, writes Kathy Marks. Alcoholism, heroin addiction, a string of failed relationships, the tragic death of a son - Clapton's past contains all these demons, and more besides. Now a new one has emerged to haunt him: the father he never met.

Some of our best people have done it (not gone to university, that is). So why bother, especially when a graduate tax is going to make your degree an expensive way to party for three years? Eleanor Bailey reports

The UK may not join the first stage of EMU, but companies cannot afford not to embrace the new money.

Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, yesterday defended the Budget against criticism from MPs that it had not done enough to cool down the overheating economy.