We will uphold family life as the most secure means of bringing up our children. Families are the core of our society. They should teach right from wrong. They should be the first defence against anti-social behaviour. The breakdown of family life damages the fabric of our society.

Labour does not see families and the state as rival providers for the needs of our citizens. Families should provide the day-to-day support for children to be brought up in a stable and loving environment. But families cannot flourish unless government plays its distinctive role: in education; where necessary, in caring for the young; in making adequate provision for illness and old age; in supporting good parenting; and in protecting families from lawlessness and abuse of power. Society, through government, must assist families to achieve collectively what no family can achieve alone.

Yet families in Britain today are under strain as never before. The security once offered by the health service has been undermined. Streets are not safe. Housing insecurity grows. Millions of families are badly served by the education system. One in five non-pensioner families has no one working; and British men work the longest hours in Europe.

The clock should not be turned back. As many women who want to work should be able to do so. More equal relationships between men and women have transformed our lives.

Equally, our attitudes to race, sex and sexuality have changed fundamentally. Our task is to combine change and social stability.

Work and family

Families without work are without independence. This is why we give so much emphasis to our welfare-to-work policies.

Labour's national childcare strategy will plan provision to match the requirements of the modern labour market and help parents, especially women, to balance family and working life.

There must be a sound balance between support for family life and the protection of business from undue burdens - a balance which some of the most successful businesses already strike. The current government has shown itself wholly insensitive to the need to help develop family-friendly working practices. While recognising the need for flexibility in implementation and for certain exemptions, we support the right of employees not to be forced to work more than 48 hours a week; to an annual holiday entitlement; and to limited unpaid parental leave. These measures will provide a valuable underpinning to family life.

The rights of part-time workers have been clarified by recent court judgements which we welcome.

We will keep under continuous review all aspects of the tax and benefits systems to ensure that they are supportive of families and children. We are committed to retain universal Child Benefit where it is universal today - from birth to age 16 - and to uprate it at least in line with prices. We are reviewing educational finance and maintenance for those older than 16 to ensure higher staying-on rates at school and college, and that resources are used to support those in most need. This review will continue in government on the guidelines we have already laid down.

Security in housing

Most families want to own their own homes. We will also support efficiently run social and private rented sectors offering quality and choice.

The Conservatives' failure on housing has been two-fold. The two thirds of families who own their homes have suffered a massive increase in insecurity over the last decade, with record mortgage arrears, record negative equity and record repossessions. And the Conservatives' lack of a housing strategy has led to the virtual abandonment of social housing, the growth of homelessness, and a failure to address fully leaseholder reform. All these are the Tory legacy.

Labour's housing strategy will address the needs of homeowners and tenants alike.

We will reject the boom and bust policies which caused the collapse of the housing market.

We will work with mortgage providers to encourage greater provision of more flexible mortgages to protect families in a world of increased job insecurity.

Mortgage buyers also require stronger consumer protection, for example by extension of the Financial Services Act, against the sale of disadvantageous mortgage packages.

The problems of gazumping have reappeared. Those who break their bargains should be liable to pay the costs inflicted on others, in particular legal and survey costs. We are consulting on the best way of tackling the problems of gazumping in the interests of responsible home buyers and sellers.

The rented housing sector

We support a three-way partnership between the public, private and housing association sectors to promote good social housing. With Labour, capital receipts from the sale of council houses, received but not spent by local councils, will be re-invested in building new houses and rehabilitating old ones. This will be phased to match the capacity of the building industry and to meet the requirements of prudent economic management.

We also support effective schemes to deploy private finance to improve the public housing stock and to introduce greater diversity and choice. Such schemes should only go ahead with the support of the tenants concerned: we oppose the government's threat to hand over council housing to private landlords without the consent of tenants and with no guarantees on rents or security of tenure.

We value a revived private rented sector. We will provide protection where most needed: for tenants in houses in multiple occupation. There will be a proper system of licensing by local authorities which will benefit tenants and responsible landlords alike.

We will introduce 'commonhold', a new form of tenure enabling people living in flats to own their homes individually and to own the whole property collectively. We will simplify the current rules restricting the purchase of freeholds by leaseholders.

Homelessness

Homelessness has more than doubled under the Conservatives. Today more than 40,000 families in England are in expensive temporary accommodation. The government, in the face of Labour opposition, has removed the duty on local authorities to find permanent housing for homeless families. We will place a new duty on local authorities to protect those who are homeless through no fault of their own and are in priority need.

There is no more powerful symbol of Tory neglect in our society today than young people without homes living rough on the streets. Young people emerging from care without any family support are particularly vulnerable. We will attack the problem in two principal ways: the phased release of capital receipts from council house sales will increase the stock of housing for rent; and our welfare-to-work programme will lead the young unemployed into work and financial independence.

Older citizens

We value the positive contribution that older people make to our society, through their families, voluntary activities and work. Their skills and experience should be utilised within their communities. That is why, for example, we support the proposal to involve older people as volunteers to help children learn in pre-school and after-school clubs. In work, they should not be discriminated against because of their age.

The provision of adequate pensions in old age is a major challenge for the future. For today's pensioners Conservative policies have created real poverty, growing inequality and widespread insecurity.

The Conservatives would abolish the state-financed basic retirement pension and replace it with a privatised scheme, with a vague promise of a means-tested state guarantee if pensions fall beneath a minimum level. Their proposals mean there will be no savings on welfare spending for half a century; and taxes will have to rise to make provision for new privately funded pensions. Their plans require an additional £312 billion between now and 2040 through increased taxes or borrowing, against the hope of savings later, with no certainty of security in retirement at the end.

We believe that all pensioners should share fairly in the increasing prosperity of the nation. Instead of privatisation, we propose a partnership between public and private provision, and a balance between income sourced from tax and invested savings. The basic state pension will be retained as the foundation of pension provision. It will be increased at least in line with prices. We will examine means of delivering more automatic help to the poorest pensioners - one million of whom do not even receive the Income Support which is their present entitlement.

We will encourage saving for retirement, with proper protection for savings. We will reform the Financial Services Act so that the scandal of pension mis-selling - 600,000 pensions mis-sold and only 7,000 people compensated to date - will not happen again.

Too many people in work, particularly those on low and modest incomes and with changing patterns of employment, cannot join good-value second pension schemes. Labour will create a new framework -stakeholder pensions - to meet this need. We will encourage new partnerships between financial service companies, employers and employees to develop these pension schemes. They will be approved to receive people's savings only if they meet high standards of value for money, flexibility and security.

Labour will promote choice in pension provision. We will support and strengthen the framework for occupational pensions. Personal pensions, appropriately regulated, will remain a good option for many. Labour will retain SERPS as an option for those who wish to remain within it. We will also seek to develop the administrative structure of SERPS so as to create a 'citizenship pension' for those who assume responsibility as carers, as a result lose out on the pension entitlements they would otherwise acquire, and currently end up on means-tested benefits.

We overcame government opposition to pension splitting between women and men on divorce. We will implement this in government.

We aim to provide real security for families through a modern system of community care. As people grow older, their need for care increases. The Conservative approach is to promote private insurance and privatisation of care homes. But their scheme will be inaccessible to most people. And their policy for residential homes is dogmatic and will not work. We believe that local authorities should be free to develop a mix of public and private care.

We recognise the immense amount of care provision undertaken by family members, neighbours and friends. It was a Labour MP who piloted the 1995 Carers Act through Parliament. We will establish a Royal Commission to work out a fair system for funding long-term care for the elderly. We will introduce a 'long-term care charter' defining the standard of services which people are entitled to expect from health, housing and social services. We are committed to an independent inspection and

regulation service for residential homes, and domiciliary care.

Everyone is entitled to dignity in retirement. Under the Tories, the earnings link for state pensions has been ended, VAT on fuel has been imposed, SERPS has been undermined and community care is in tatters. We will set up a review of the central areas of insecurity for elderly people: all aspects of the basic pension and its value, second pensions including SERPS, and community care. The review will ensure that the views of pensioners are heard. Our watchword in developing policy for pensions and long-term care will be to build consensus among all interested parties.