Brown: 'I will stand up for a strong Britain'

Gordon Brown has given his first speech to the Labour Party Conference as the country was kept guessing about a possible General Election.

The Prime Minister received a standing ovation as delegates danced in the aisles and tears filled their eyes at the end of the 63-minute speech in which he promised education, health and economic forms and a crime crackdown.

He said: "So this is my pledge to the British people: I will not let you down. I will stand up for our schools and hospitals. I will stand up for British values. I will stand up for a strong Britain. And I will always stand up for you."

Mr Brown began his speech by joking about an election, saying if he was asked whether he could recommend his job to others he would reply: "Not yet."

He told delegates he was "honoured and humbled" by the trust the party had placed in him to replace Tony Blair.

Setting out his vision for future Labour years in No 10, Mr Brown said the events of the last few months showed "the resilience of the British people has been powerful proof of the character of our country".

He singled out baggage handler John Smeaton for praise after the 31-year-old helped a police officer tackle an alleged terrorist on June 30 when a blazing jeep was driven into Glasgow Airport.

There was also thanks for the brave actions of bomb disposal experts who "courageously risked their lives" in June when two cars were found parked and packed with explosives in Haymarket, London.

He said: "They were put there to bring terror and death to men and women who would do nothing wrong but be out with their friends, walk on our streets and visit our capital."

Mr Brown stressed the importance of education and a revamped NHS in meeting the challenges the country faces and said 16-year-olds from "low income families" would be financed through college or university "right through to 21".

He also spoke of meeting "Max", a six-year-old boy at Lauriston primary School in Hackney, east London, who had been struggling to read.

Max had received one-to-one coaching and now "did brilliantly" as he read the premier The Gingerbread Man.

Mr Brown promised: "We have decided that one-to-one tuition will be there in our schools not just for Max but for 300,000 children in English and 300,000 in maths."

Mr Brown also pledged youngsters would get five hours a week playing sport and "time for arts and music too".

The premier said every secondary school pupil would also get a personal tutor "throughout their school years" and small group tuition would be introduced for 600,000 pupils.

Mr Brown, whose father was a Church of Scotland minister, insisted he wanted equality for all youngsters, saying: "We all remember that biblical saying 'suffer the little children to come unto me'.

"No bible I have ever read says: 'Bring just some of the children'."

He declared war on gun crime, with police in four "hotspot" cities receiving handheld weapon scanners. The PM said portable computers would also be issued to forces to cut down on paperwork so more time can be spent on the beat.

He told the conference: "No parent should ever have to endure the suffering of the family of Rhys Jones, the young boy callously murdered in Liverpool on Wednesday August 22.

"And the reason the people of Britain have been so shocked is that amongst the vast majority of us there is an abhorrence of guns in our society.

"That is why we took the right decision to ban handguns. And now we need to deal with the illegal supply of handguns. Two-thirds of deaths from gun crime occur in just four cities.

"In the last few weeks (Home Secretary) Jacqui Smith and I have focused on the specific areas in these cities, where as I saw on Saturday at first hand, the police will now match intensive uniformed patrolling and extensive undercover work with the use of stop and search powers and dispersal powers reinforced by new hand-held weapons detectors, and all backed up by the work of the organised crime agency and our border force rigorously targeting and stopping the illegal entry of guns."

And on the economy Mr Brown said: "Everything we build, we build on a strong foundation of economic stability.

"Our commitment to stability has been tested again and again over the years - the Asian crisis, the Russian crisis, the American recession, the trebling of oil prices.

"And in the last month a wave of financial turbulence that started in America and then Germany and has impacted on all countries including the United Kingdom, tested the stability of our financial system.

"It is because of the strength of the British economy that we are able to steer a path of low inflation, interest rates and stable growth."

He confirmed the Government would raise the national minimum wage next week to £5.52 an hour and promised to enforce it "without exception".

The premier said he had met "too many young couples" who could not afford their own homes. He promised "thousands of new homes in every region of the country", including a doubling of proposed "eco-towns" from five to ten.

Mr Brown pledged there would be an NHS that is "accessible to all and personal to all" with new funds to deep-clean hospital wards, along with a doubling in the number of matrons to 5,000.

He promised family-friendly opening hours for GP surgeries and extended breast and colon cancer screening as well as the target of a regular check-up for every adult on the NHS.

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