THE domination of security and anti-crime measures in the Queen’s Speech today has raised concerns within Whitehall that the government programme will appear “lop-sided” before the next election.

Among the 37 Bills to be announced are proposals for a national identity card scheme, an FBI-style serious crime agency, further crackdowns on antisocial behaviour and drugs, as well as plans to merge the prison and probation services.

The Home Office has been given guarantees that it will receive priority over other departments in the timetable of a parliamentary session likely to be cut short by a general election in the spring. David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, has even begun setting out his stall for third-term policies which, he says, will include antiterrorism courts without juries and the use of telephone intercepts in trials.

But Tony Blair has promised colleagues that he remains committed to a “twin-track” political strategy which emphasises opportunity and security or, as aides put it, “hope as well as fear”.

One close adviser cited the success of President Bush’s election campaign this month, saying: “We must not cede the ground of security at home and abroad to parties from the Right. Having covered our flank on these issues, we earn the trust of voters to talk about other things.

“We have some time between now and the general election to concentrate on individual opportunity. These policies do not have to be in the Queen’s Speech because they are more often to do with reforms and investment, not legislation.” Downing Street believes that the Government will begin to correct the imbalance as early as next week when Gordon Brown publishes his Pre-Budget Report.

The Treasury has spent months working on proposals, first trailed by Mr Blair in September, for extending childcare provision. The Chancellor is expected to use his statement next Thursday to set out details on the funding of dawn-to-dusk care for 5 to 11-year-olds, a children’s centre in every community and updating nursery subsidies.

He will also announce further measures on expanding skills training and long-term education at a time when tight public finances make it difficult for him to cut taxes or increase spending.

But the “opportunity agenda” is likely to hinge on two departmental five-year plans which have been delayed for several months amid signs of policy differences in Whitehall.

John Prescott’s Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is expected to publish its five-year plan before Christmas.

Although officials promise that it will include “the most ambitious housing strategy we have seen for decades”, there has been tension with Cabinet colleagues over how far to go in extending property ownership.

Alan Milburn, the election co-ordinator, is said to have been pressing for an enhanced right to buy among housing association tenants. He used a recent speech to say: “We need to break the prevailing orthodoxy that the only future for those who don’t own their own homes is social housing. Instead, the Government is rightly establishing an increase in home ownership as an explicit objective of policy.”

There has been similar disagreement over the five-year plan for the Department for Work and Pensions which has been run by Alan Johnson since Andrew Smith, a Treasury ally, pre-empted this summer’s reshuffle by resigning his post. Mr Brown’s aides later said that Mr Smith quit because of “draconian” Downing Street proposals for welfare reform such as “time-limiting” access to incapacity benefit, claimed by more than two million people.

But well-placed sources said yesterday that the Government was unlikely to back any “big-bang” solution. Instead, measures are likely to be piece-meal with expansion of the “Pathways to Work” pilot project schemes for weaning people off incapacity benefit by offering them cash incentives and rehabilitation.

The five-year plan is also likely to signal the Government’s direction over pension policy. Although details will not be agreed before publication of the Turner review after the election, Mr Blair is pressing for an announcement of “underlying principles”.

Ministerial hints suggest that this will recognise the importance of the Treasury’s means-tested pension credit system in tackling poverty in old age. But Mr Johnson has signalled that he does not believe that the credit is a long-term solution to the pensions crisis. A new strategy is expected to focus on encouraging people to stay on in work and removing “age discrimination” which prevents them doing so.

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