Pledge by PM to end child poverty

TONY BLAIR will today make a pledge to eradicate child poverty in the next 20 years when he launches a personal "crusade" to revolutionise the welfare state. He will make the unprecedented commitment as he outlines the Government's radical plans for welfare reform in a set-piece speech in London.

When he delivers the annual Beveridge Lecture, Mr Blair will say he wants the welfare state become as popular with the general public as the National Health Service. But it must first lose the stigma of fraud, abuse and dependency and return to its post-war roots as a "force for progress" and advancement.

Unless ministers can convince the wider public the system works, there is a danger that it could collapse completely, Mr Blair will warn. Most important of all, it must aim to eradicate child poverty by focusing all its efforts on supporting parents both in and out of work. "Our historic aim will be for ours to be the first generation to end child poverty. It will take a generation. It is a 20-year mission but I believe it can be done," he will say.

Mr Blair will claim that 700,000 children will be lifted out of poverty as a result of record increases in child benefit, the introduction of the working families tax credit, the minimum wage and other tax and benefit changes unveiled in the Budget.

He will also publish figures showing early success in the Department of Social Security's attempts to slash wasteful welfare spending that is vital to restore public faith in the system.

Far from dismantling the state benefit sector, as some on the right would prefer, Labour will "make the welfare state popular again" by instituting radical reform, he will declare. "Unless it is seen to be doing its job properly, it will decline in support and eventually crumble," he will warn the audience at Toynbee Hall, east London.

Mr Blair will use the lecture to unveil his own five guiding principles to popularise the new welfare state, including ensuring it appeals to the "hardworking majority and not just the poor". The system must be active rather than passive, must root out fraud and direct help to those in greatest need, be based on a new ethic of responsibilities as well as rights and tackle the causes and not the symptoms of poverty.

"When you talk about welfare, people now think of fraud, abuse and a dependency culture, social irresponsibility encouraged by dependency. Welfare often became the problem, not the solution.

"This is dangerous. If people lose faith in the welfare state's ability to deliver, then politicians have an impossible job persuading hard-pressed taxpayers that their money should go on a system that's not working. If all welfare, good spending as well as bad, becomes stigmatised, then the security of children, the disabled and pensioners is put at risk."

Mr Blair will use the speech to attack the philosophy of the New Right and the record of the previous government, when one-third of all children lived in families with less than half the average income level. The Tories widened the gap between rich and poor and increased benefit dependency, particularly of means-tested benefits, while the number of homeless on the streets rose.