[UK] 'Poverty is biggest evil of our time, we must beat it'

from IC Wales

Phillip Nifield, South Wales Echo

Chancellor Gordon Brown turned minds back to last summer's Make Poverty History campaign as he made an impassioned plea for help for the world's most disadvantaged.

In a 40-minute address to a Welsh Labour rally in Swansea, Mr Brown told delegates about the poverty he had found in Africa, meeting AIDS orphans and children unable to afford to go to school.

He said the West needed a 'new deal' with the developing world to eradicate poverty.

Mr Brown said poor countries must be 'empowered in trade, education and health care'.

He said: 'We are talking about a new deal between the rich countries and poor countries of the world.

'We are talking, if you like, about a new covenant between rich and poor.'

Mr Brown insisted that debt relief was essential to lifting countries out of poverty.

He said Britain was willing to wipe out debts and 'we will ask other countries to follow and we will continue the campaign until we succeed so that there is debt relief for all the poor countries of the world'.

The Chancellor, fresh from his Budget speech on Wednesday, also questioned the Conservatives' commitment to ending global poverty.

He pointed to cuts in aid when they were in power and said that the Tories' fiscal rules would result in less money for international development.

Declaring that poverty was 'the greatest evil of our time', Mr Brown said his aim was to provide universal free education for every child in the developing world and free health care for every family.

'We can build the greatest moral crusade of our time,' said the Chancellor, who received a long-standing ovation from delegates as he ended with the words 'let us make poverty history'.

Earlier, First Minister Rhodri Morgan said that if the Prime Minister intended to step down next year he should do it before the National Assembly elections.

A new leader would give Labour a boost in the polls, he added.