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The government planned to tackle the issue of affordability through one of its schemes know as the Home Access Programme. The government planned to spend approximately ￡300 million which would provide low income families with new lower cost devices (laptops) and free access to broadband. The report outlines the digital agenda to help realise better outcomes for young people and children. Not only does it provide for the children but also for their parents with the advice and support they need in order to support their child's effective and safe use of the internet. This would give the new generation the skills required to make the most of new technology. On 2nd February, 2009 the government started a pilot across Suffolk and Oldham local authorities. But not long after, the scheme was under scrutiny by various critics who thought that this step to bridge the gap between the rich and poor was very drastic (Bevanger, 2010). Social Inclusion does overlap with the concept of socio-economic equality but it is not equivalent to it. Implying that the poor can have fuller contribution and inclusion without having an equal share of resources and on the other hand the wealthy can face discrimination problems based on gender, age and race. It does not ignore class but it recognises a broad array of other variables which help shape how class forces interact (Warschauer, 2003). Other than the obvious problem there were two other significant fall-outs of this scheme.

The first issue was brought up by a Conservative MP and his main concern was regarding parents selling of these laptops in exchange for cash. This plan was sponsored by Britain's top agency for information and communication technology in education (Becta). Becta agreed that they could not guarantee that the parents involved in this programme would not sell the laptops but to curb any such consequences they were keeping a check and monitoring e-bay and pawn shops. The conservative MP stated that the main flaw of the scheme was that there was very little policing done and there was nothing to stop a minority of the beneficiaries selling the device. He himself had not seen anybody sell but, had evidence provided by his constituents that people had already indulged in such activities (BBC, 2010).

There are a number of group businesses and organizations that are meant to provide goods and services to the Home Access Programme. One of the key suppliers RM Education had backed out asserting that this scheme is not a viable long-term roll out and that the commercial returns were 'quite poor' (Thurston, 2010). This was followed with another issue which cropped up after the pilot. This is study of a working mother who was denied any help under the scheme. Mother of two, Debbie was told that her family was not eligible under the scheme because it was only for families in which the parents do not work. She rightly exclaimed that there were a lot of working families which could not afford computers or the access to the broadband. She further highlighted a flaw declaring that there was nothing to stop people from selling their laptops and all this was being funded by the taxpayer and disagreed with the whole moral of the situation. The main aim of the programme was to help out bridge the achievement gap between the rich and poor pupils. But looking at this particular case it seems clear that the practical application of this programme in reality is dif