Blair: controversial move

Downing Street has insisted that the prime minister will not be deflected from his plans to target the benefits of parents whose children repeatedly fail to attend school.

Whilst Number 10 said the details of the plans had still to be worked out, Blair's spokesman said he was "totally unapologetic" about the proposals.

"We aren't at the stage yet of being able to put forward detailed policy proposals but this is an issue which is under consideration. The prime minister is 100 per cent focussed on the problem of street crime," said a spokesman.

The comments came as the government faced growing opposition to new plans which would see the parents of young thugs losing their child benefit.

The move, detailed to the cabinet COBRA group last week, comes as the government gets tough in its fight against soaring levels of street crime.

Parents who allow their children to play truant from school will be targeted, Tony Blair told his cabinet colleagues.

He has called on the government's policy advisers to examine ways to withdraw benefits from the worst offenders.

The government, alarmed at the soaring level of street crime committed by under-16s, wants the policy to be fast-tracked through Whitehall.

The policy has the support of key ministers, including David Blunkett and Estelle Morris, but is likely to set the Labour leadership on a collision course with its own backbenches.

The chancellor, Gordon Brown, is said to have expressed strong reservations about any scheme which targets the benefits of some of the lowest income households in the UK.

Speaking on Monday, work and pensions secretary Alastair Darling refused to say whether he backed the proposal.

He said it was "one of a number of measures" being looked at by ministers.

"The test for me and all my colleagues is, would it work and would it be effective? We haven't reached a conclusion yet, but we are considering it," he told the BBC's Today programme.

Over the weekend, deputy prime minister John Prescott had sought to play down the reports - stressing the policy was simply one option under consideration.

"We need to tackle the truancy - if that is a possibility of how you might deal with it, I would be prepared to consider it as a possibility," he told On The Record.

But left-wingers have warned that the policy would simply "make the poor poorer".

Details

Under the plans, parents who fail to stop their children playing truant would have their child benefit cut - amounting to a loss of £15.75 a week for the first child and £10.55 a week for additional children.

A single parent with two "tearaway children" would risk losing over £110 a month under the new plans.

To combat the rise in drug-related crime, the government is also looking at ways to prevent landlords who allow drug dealing on their premises letting their properties to those on benefits.

Education secretary Estelle Morris told Sky News that the proposals reflected the correct balance between "rights and responsibilities".

"Quite frankly, when a parent persistently refuses to even send their child to school there really is a limit as to what teachers can do, what police can do or what anyone else can do," she said.

"There has got to be that balance of rights and responsibilities from every single one of us."

But Iain Duncan Smith dismissed the government plan as an attempt "to get the press off their backs" until Thursday's local elections have passed.

"My concern with this government is when they get into difficulties they brief the Sunday papers that they've got a new announcement," he said.

Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy dismissed the new policy, suggesting it would "die a death" after the local elections.

Police chiefs warned that it is unlikely the policy would be effective with the "hard-core" of young offenders who carry out the majority of street crime.