All schools to have faster access to Internet by 2006

All 22,000 primary and secondary schools in England will have high-speed internet access by 2006, as part of a £1bn scheme for the public sector, Tony Blair pledged yesterday.

GPs' surgeries, hospitals and the criminal justice system will also get "broadband" links, in a move that will also make high-speed internet more readily available to the wider population.

At the a meeting of experts on "e-government", Pierre Danon, chief executive of BT's retail division, announced that it would increase the number of households able to get broadband from 66 per cent to 90 per cent by mid-2005.

Mr Blair told the meeting that the spending would create "fundamental improvement in the efficiency, convenience and quality of our services".

Broadband connections offer a number of benefits over the standard "dial-up" access that most people use. They are always on, and do not block your phone line. Data moves more than nine times faster than dial-up, making it feasible to watch live video and download large files, such as MP3 music files, quickly.

However, Britain lags badly in broadband takeup. A world survey in May placed Britain 20th, with only 0.09 per cent of users having a fast link – behind every other major European country, as well as the US and Canada. South Korea topped the league, with 9 per cent of people connected. Upgrading exchanges costs thousands of pounds, and BT has been accused of dragging its feet – although the company has blamed a lack of demand.

Mr Blair was forced however to admit an early defeat in one of his key targets for the Government's online strategy. In 1997 he declared an aim to make the UK "the best place in the world for e-commerce" – but a report published yesterday found that the UK is in second place, behind the US. "We are the best in Europe and ahead of Japan," he noted.