Gordon Brown's speech: Point by point
Monday, 24 September 2007 12:00 AM
Gordon Brown has delivered his first speech as leader to the Labour party conference. In his longstanding tendency to put substance ahead of style, he promised today's keynote speech would be heavy on policy. Here, politics.co.uk outlines the prime minister's main commitments.
Education
- One-to-one tuition for 300,000 children in English and 300,000 children in maths.
- Five hours of sport a week and timetable time for arts and music.
- A personal tutor for all secondary school pupils and small group tuition for 600,000 secondary pupils.
- Free, compulsory education guaranteed for all children from three to 18 years old.
- A national youth community service for all teenagers.
- 300,000 full grants for students and financial support for a further 300,000
- A five year financial guarantee for 16-year-old from the poorest homes.
Family
- Expand the nurse-family partnerships to help new mothers.
- One-to-one support for problem families
- All fathers will be named on birth certificates and maintenance payments from absent fathers will be reclaimed from their benefits.
- Paid maternity pay extended to nine months, with the eventual aim of 12 months
Health and social care
- Better access to flexible NHS care.
- A deep clean of every NHS ward.
- Double the number of hospital matrons to 5,000 and give them the power to sack poor cleaning contractors.
- Breast cancer screening extended for six months and every case treated as urgent.
- Colon screening extended into people's seventies.
- £15 billion investment for research in genetics, stem cell research and new cancer drugs.
- More support for carers, including training, better pension rights and a new priority for people caring for disabled children.
- Personal social care budgets for the elderly, choice in managing chronic care and a wider range of services including district nurses and home helps.
Employment
- Restore the link between basic state pension and earnings.
- Minimum wage to rise £5.52 an hour next week, backed up by rigorous enforcement.
- Four days paid public holiday for all.
Housing
- 240,000 new homes a year to increase the supply of housing.
- Double the number of new eco-towns to ten.
- £8 billion investment for social housing
- All housing associations and councils to be encouraged to support shared equity schemes for first time buyers.
Crime
- Focus on the illegal supply of guns, aided by a border police.
- Stop and search and dispersal powers for the most affected areas.
- New hand-held weapon detectors for police.
- Extend existing powers to close crack houses across the country.
- Police to use more of confiscated funds from drugs profits for their own policing and community work.
- Expand drug education and treatment centres.
- Handheld computers, rising to 10,000 by next year, to cut police paperwork
- Parents to be held accountable for children's bad behaviour, including fines for failing to supervise.
- Councils and authorities also obliged to maintain young people's education and supervision.
- Unclaimed assets in dormant accounts to be used to build new youth centres.
- ID cards for foreign nationals from next year.
- Expel immigrants who sell drugs or use guns.
Constitutional
- Parliament to have final vote on war.
- Protection for civil liberties including freedom of speech, freedom of information and freedom to protest.
- Economic development for local democracy.
- Manifesto commitment to elections for the House of Lords.
Environment
- Review 60 per cent target for carbon emissions.
- New green technologies to boost British manufacturing.
- Commitment to post-Kyoto UN climate change agreement.
Foreign policy
- Protect Britain's "red lines" in the amended European Treaty.
- Push for a ceasefire in Darfur.
- Work for peace and security in the Middle East.
- Fulfil obligations in Iraq and Afghanistan to achieve security, political reconciliation and economic reconstruction.
- Primary education for every child across the world.
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