discussions among 184 countries on the global economy, let me tell you first of all that, working with Clare Short, our Labour Government has this weekend led the movement for enhanced debt relief for the poorest countries”.

And our proposal for an extra one billion dollars - endorsed yesterday with pledges and promises from 15 countries - will now help the world meet our objective to cancel up to 100 billion dollars of poor countries’ debt.

And as one who has had the privilege of representing Britain and our party at meetings internationally, let me pay tribute to the commitment to this cause of thousands of Labour Party members.

And let us as a party pay tribute to tens of thousands of trade unionists, church members and NGO campaigners who from Jubilee 2000 to Justice for Trade, have driven forward this great coalition for justice on a global scale.

Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer said at the Labour Party conference in Blackpool today. “Having flown back overnight from Washington, from the annual meetings of the World Bank and the IMF, from our

It is because the world cannot permanently endure half wealthy and well off, half impoverished and shackled by debt, that yesterday our Labour Government also put forward in Washington a modern Marshall Plan for the developing world - a new compact where in return for developing countries tackling instability and corruption, the developed countries open up trade and double aid for health and education, so that together we will meet the United Nations’ Millennium Goals: to halve poverty, cut infant mortality by two thirds, and ensure that not just some but every child enjoys schooling.

Conference: ours is not only the first generation to live in a truly global economy with the technology and capability to eradicate global poverty if we choose. But we are also the first generation who, having escaped from the shadow of a fifty year long cold war, now confronts one of the legacies of the cold war and its end -

the indiscriminate proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

And just as we stand for a world free from poverty, we stand for a world free from fear.

It has fallen to this generation to meet the challenge of preventing the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

Non-proliferation has been, for fifty years, a cause of this party, of this Labour movement. And how many times have we said each to the other that if only the international community could act as one, we could prevent the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons across the world? That is why we should and must support the strong leadership Tony Blair has shown and the strongest message must go out to Saddam Hussein from the international community, that his actions cannot continue unchecked and with impunity.

In these times of insecurity and risk we must have the strength to take the right long term decisions on the economy.

Japan, Asia, much of Latin America and Europe - 20 countries, accounting for half the world’s output - have been or are in recession.

Ten years ago at this conference when I spoke to you for the first time as Shadow Chancellor I promised that if we the Labour Party together had the strength to adopt a new long term policy for stability and prudence, to be a party of competition and enterprise as well as fairness, we could restore not just the Labour Party’s reputation for economic competence but could achieve in our country the 1945 aim - which we reaffirm for our generation - high and stable levels of growth and employment.

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