It is time, in short, to champion a modern Britain where what matters is not where you come from but what contribution you can make.

Opportunity for all through high standards in education; opportunity for all through modernising the welfare state.

Conference, when the Working Families Tax Credit was introduced we ran as a party a nation-wide take-up campaign so that instead of 800,000 on family credit, there are today 1.3 million families better off by an average of Ł40 a week.

And from next April, nearly six million families in Britain will be entitled to receive the new child tax credit, and the poorest families who used to receive for the first child just Ł28 a week will receive Ł54 a week.

I ask you to help us again publicise in every area not only the new child tax credit but also the new Working Tax Credit that, building on the National Minimum Wage, guarantees a one income family a minimum income of Ł183 a week.

So with these new tax credits - helping all families, but helping those who need it most - we are building a modern welfare state for our time and our generation.

That is why our reforms are raising maternity pay and extending maternity leave, introducing for the first time paternity pay, doubling funding for childcare, helping mothers have the choice to stay at home when their children are young, parents to work part time as well as full time, and to balance work and family life more successfully.

Andrew Smith publishes in the autumn his plans for better provision for the pensioners of tomorrow, and we will for today’s pensioners introduce from next year: the pension Credit worth up to Ł14 a week, raised in line not with prices but with earnings, rewarding not penalising pensioners for their savings; the minimum income guaranteed at Ł100 a week, rising this Parliament in line not with prices but with earnings, and I can tell conference and Age Concern who

asked us this morning; with these measures our aim is to end pensioner poverty in our country.

For our elderly and indeed all who depend on the NHS, in the budget I told the country plainly and directly that it was right to raise taxes - to increase national insurance by 1% - to pay for the biggest expansion in NHS funding and reform since the NHS was established more than half a century ago.

10,000 more doctors, 20,000 more nurses, 40 more hospitals.

We have raised taxes because the case for the NHS is not weaker but stronger than in 1948, stronger because today’s treatments and drugs are so much more expensive that without an NHS one family suffering one illness could face bills of Ł20,000, Ł50,000 or even Ł100,000 or more.

GORDON BROWN’S SPEECH

Continued

.And the reason I, along with Estelle, have long been concerned about too many teenagers leaving school early, too few going on to university and college, is that I remember my friends at school with me. They worked hard, They did well, but when school ended, few of them could them could go to university. It was a scandal of wasted potential. And I remember as a university lecturer when just 20% of school leavers could find a place in university. It was a scandal of wasted potential then and it is a scandal of wasted potential now

For when today 80% of the sons and daughters of professional classes rightly enjoy higher education, yet only 14% of the sons and daughters of unskilled workers do, it is both right for our economy and for social justice to widen opportunity, so that not just a minority but a majority of young people have, for the first time, the chance of university, and no one should be denied education for lack of income. And it is time to champion that modern Britain where what matters is not your birth and your background, but your ability and potential.

That is why to improve school staying on rates, Estelle and I have set aside public money to expand for lower income families student grants - educational maintenance allowances, worth up to Ł1500 a year.

So too it is time in higher education to hear what students and parents everywhere are saying. As we examine the problems of student loans and fees and look at experience in Scotland and Wales, Estelle and I want to apply to higher education the same test: that all - and not just those who can afford it - have the chance to make the most of their talents.