The children of better-off families would get half that sum, though ministers are said to believe that making it payable universally is the safest way to protect the scheme from being abolished when the Conservatives next win power. Yesterday the rightwing Adam Smith Institute claimed authorship of the idea, as did the Fabian Society and the IPPR think tanks on the left. Mr Blair sees it as a down payment on a mortgage, a business or training.
Ministers say it is establishing a principle.