Gordon Brown has been grilled by MPs on the fine print of his comprehensive spending review.

The chancellor this week pledged to increase spending in areas such as health and education on the back of swingeing cuts in the workforce.

Brown faced tough questions on the logistics of cutting up to 104,000 public sector jobs.

Both chairman John McFall and MP George Mudie asked the chancellor to give a commitment that the jobs to be cut would not be lost at the lowest level.

Mudie said it was the poorest who always bore the brunt, "those furthest away from the centre".

But Brown said it would be a "major opportunity" for some staff to move to frontline service delivery areas.

"I think it would be wrong for the committee to start from the assumption that the people who are going to suffer most from this are the low paid," he said.

And he pointed to the creation of tens of thousands more frontline posts in areas such as the health service and community policing as proof that there would be vacancies available for people to move into.

"The processes of help and retraining and advice about new jobs, with 600,000 vacancies in the economy, has all been set in place," he promised.

"Instead of these people being isolated and unable to cope and being ignored, that is not the way it is happening.

"We are wanting to help people as they make changes and retrain and re-equip people for the future."

The chancellor went on to announce that he was hopeful of selling-off about £30 billion of public land and buildings by 2010, arguing that as the government owned £612 billion in assets selling one per cent a year was not reckless.

"When you are having this big reduction in civil service posts, properties become available and land becomes available," he argued.

He also said a rise in income tax from increasingly generous City bonuses was contributing to the health of the economy.

Brown dismissed accusations that his golden rules were in danger, telling the committee that he had a massive margin for error.