Mr Brown said savers would be able to hold a wider range of assets, including funds that invest in property.. Peter Newman, trainee barrister Peter Newman, trainee barrister Lives: Brixton, London, but planning to move into new property in JuneAge: 26Income: Unpaid, but will earn £30,000 from summerCompany benefits: NoneOutgoings: Has just bought flat in Brixton for £225,000, with an mortgage at £780 a month. Council tax £50 a month, other bills unknown.£30 to £40 a week on wine.Politics: Centre left, voted Lib Dem Now unsure.Hopes for Budget: No rise in income tax. More for schools, NHS, and legal aid.Effect of Budget: Alcohol duty rise will cost £9 a year.Reaction: "The rise in the stamp duty threshold does not make any difference to me and I wonder what the point is. You will be lucky to find a flat or house for that price in London."I am disappointed there was not more for criminal justice. There have been a lot of cuts in the system, some which affect its quality. I also think it is wrong to give £75 a week to 17-year-olds to stay at school."Arifa Akbar.

First-time buyers were given an incentive to take the housing plunge - and vote Labour - when the threshold at which stamp duty becomes payable was doubled to £120,000. The number of first-time buyers entering the housing market has fallen by a third in the past two years.But critics branded the announcement, which will cost the Exchequer £250m, "regionally divisive" for favouring prospective buyers in the North and West. Although 300,000 buyers stand to gain from the tax break, buyers in London will benefit the least, since just 5 per cent of properties for sale in the capital cost less than £120,000. In the North-east, two-thirds of properties sold last year would have escaped the duty, which took effect at midnight last night.Peter Williams, deputy director of the Council of Mortgage Lenders, said: "Its effect will be muted in southern England where affordability is worst.

The starting threshold would be over £150,000 if it had been index-linked since Labour came into office."Liam Bailey, head of residential research at Knight Frank, the estate agency, said: "With average UK house prices standing at above £150,000, the Chancellor has missed an opportunity to help all first-time buyers throughout the UK no matter where they live."To pay for the tax break, Gordon Brown abolished stamp duty relief on commercial property in deprived areas - three years after introducing it This is expected to save him some £340m. Tube services have become substantially worse on most lines despite the huge amount of taxpayers' money spent on the part-privatisation of the London Underground, an all-party committee of senior MPs said yesterday. But he says that much of the innovative work that the school is doing, like the clinic and the Brussels campus, isn't reflected in the tables."What we have to remember," he says, "is that we are in a unique position here in Kent. It gained an excellent rating in the 2001 research assessment and has just opened a new centre for law, gender and sexuality. We are beginning to be seen as the first British university in Europe, sitting as we do so close to North-west France and Belgium. That, more than any league table, speaks volumes for our potential.". The centre is a joint venture between Kent, Keele and Westminster universities, and has been set up to "pioneer and facilitate work that analyses, investigates and deepens understanding of the relationship between gender, sexuality and the law".David Melville, Kent's vice-chancellor, agrees that in view of all that the law school has to offer, its position at number 23 in the 2004 Times league table of UK law schools is surprising and disappointing.