Gordon Brown has played safe in his pre-Budget report, seeking to deflect attention from UK public sector spending and towards its economic stability.

In a comparatively brief speech to a packed House of Commons, Brown once again emphasised Labour's impressive track record on economic growth, inflation and interest rates.

He also defied economists' views on the UK's Budget deficit, claiming that his Golden Rule - to borrow only for future investment over the economic cycle - would remain intact.

"We are on course to meet both our rules in this cycle and the next," he said.

Skills and education, security, childcare and the elderly formed the bulk of measures in his address, with relatively few tax adjustments on show.

For businesses, there were few shocks, but also only a small number of positive measures, and reactions from lobby groups are likely to be more about what the statement lacked than what it contained.

Brown pledged to increase university spin-out businesses, enhance tax breaks under the enterprise zone scheme and to provide detailed guidance on enterprise tuition for schools.

Among other announcements were the full national implementation of the employee training programme, which compensates bosses who send staff members on courses, and an independent review of skills needs.

Brown also pledged to extend common commencement dates to new areas of legislation, press on with a Panel for Regulatory Accountability and improve conditions for people to gain level 2 qualifications.

Tackling red tape, Brown said the fusion of the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise would significantly reduce compliance costs for small firms.

He promised to come down harder on regulatory impact assessments, with the Better Regulation Task Force responsible for reporting each government department's compliance.

Brown also promised to reduce the weight of legislation emanating from the EU. The government has been criticised in the past for 'gold-plating' EU Directives.

In response to the speech, Oliver Letwin and Vincent Cable, finance spokesmen for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrat parties respectively, concentrated on Brown's spending plans - especially regarding Whitehall bureaucracy and the war in Iraq.

Letwin, in particular ridiculed Brown's boast on the economy, claiming that his Golden Rule amounted to "reverse alchemy", and that "the tide is going out on the chancellor's credibility".