Gordon Brown tells the Times today that he is the first chancellor approaching a general election to be reducing rather than raising the rate of growth of public spending.

Brown says that his spending plans are affordable and consistent with his rules for public borrowing and debt.

“It is unusual for a chancellor at this point in the economic and political cycle to cut the rate of growth of spending," he said.

"That is what we will do. Most chancellors, Conservative and Labour, have at times like this been tempted to increase the rate of growth of spending. That we are resisting. We neither want stop-go in the economy, nor do we want stop-go in spending.”

He adds: “You will find that when I report on Wednesday, not only have we weathered the world downturn, but we have been the more stable of all major industrial economies, with our inflation performance closer to target consistently in this period.”

Meanwhile, shadow chancellor Oliver Letwin, tells the Times that Labour will need to raise tax by £10 billion in its third term.

Letwin yesterday called on Brown to "come clean" about the scale of tax increases required after the general election.

Today's Mirror reports that the chancellor is set to close a tax loophole which allows big stores to dodge VAT on credit card handling fees.