Labour Conference: Brown makes it a legal requirement to end child poverty

In his address to the Labour Party conference in Manchester, Brown told delegates: "I announce my intention to introduce groundbreaking legislation to enshrine in law Labour’s pledge to end child poverty."

Brown said the government had taken action to lift 250,000 children out of poverty this year and that while economic times are hard his party was determined to end child poverty.

The Prime Minister also said he wanted the UK to have one of the best early years services in the world. "I want Britain to take its place among the leading nations in pre-school services and so I pledge here today in Manchester starting in over 30 communities and then over 60 we will stage by stage extend free nurseries places for two year olds for every parents who wants them in every part of the country backed up by high quality affordable childcare for all."

He also promised to speed up the pace of school reform by creating more academy, trust and specialist schools as well as spending more money on the Building Schools for the Future programme.

"I guarantee to parents two fundamental rights because every child should leave primary school able to read, write and count any child who falls behind will not be left behind, but will now have a new guaranteed right to personal catch-up tuition, he said. And because all parents should see their children taught in schools that achieve good results at GCSE, our pledge today is that any parents whose local state school falls below the expected standard will have the right to see that school transformed under wholly new leadership or closed and new school places provided."

Brown also confirmed government plans to help more families get access to the internet. "We will fund over a million extra families to get online, on the way to our ambition of Britain leading the world with more of our people than any other major economy able to access the internet and broadband."

The prime minister used his speech to attack Conservative policies on children’s services. "They want to tell us they now believe in investing in education, but they are committed to slashing 4.5 billion from the schools building programme, axing the educational maintenance allowances that help poorer students stay on and opposing the raising of the education leaving age to 18 and stopping training programmes."

Read Brown’s speech in full at www.labouremail.org.uk/emails/577/2/15/3757/292/