Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith has accused the chancellor of leaving millions of people disappointed by the Budget.

He told the Commons that the Budget was more significant in terms of what was left out rather than what was announced.

He said Labour had squandered the economic legacy it inherited from the previous Tory administration.

"In the space of five years and six budgets, they have frittered it all away," he said.

"Your closed mind and refusal to change have condemned the British people to second-class public services. They deserve better."

In a low-key performance, Duncan Smith claimed the average earner would be £15-a-month worse off as a result of Brown's announcement.

He said Brown had let business down. "Today's measures for businesses are very small compensation indeed," said Duncan Smith.

"It's like someone taking £10 out of your wallet, giving you a pound back and saying you should be grateful," was his verdict.

He said that the government's own figures showed that public investment had fallen.

For the first time in four years the country was in deficit and manufacturing output was set to drop, he said.

Duncan Smith claimed that Brown was loading more taxes onto voters and business. He said the country was already paying an extra £100 billion-a-year since labour came to power in 1997.

The corporate tax burden on British business was now amongst the highest in the industrial world.

He argued that Labour was in serious danger of damaging the country's ability to compete in the global marketplace.

The Tory leader said that raising tax for the NHS was pointless given that much of the money already earmarked by government had failed to reach the frontline.

"Perhaps the saddest and most acute failure is the state of our National Health Service. Over the past five years you have increased NHS spending by almost a third, so where has all the money gone?" he asked.

"The government's failure, worst of all, is facing and forcing patients to go to other countries for treatment. The health service is letting people down, particularly the elderly and the vulnerable.''