Labour short on two 'early pledges'

Labour says it will do more to tackle youth crime

The government has admitted it has still to fulfil two of the five "early" pledges New Labour made to voters at the last general election.

With just months until the country is expected to go to the polls again, key promises on crime and education have still to be met.

The government has set out the five pledges and has made significant progress on all of them

Downing Street spokesman

Labour ministers and officials have conceded that Tony Blair's administration is still a long way off meeting targets on infant class sizes and dealing more quickly with young offenders.

Those two promises were among five printed on thousands of glossy, credit card-size "pledge cards" distributed to voters during the 1997 election campaign.

Labour had promised to fulfil the pledges early on in its term of government.

At the time, the party came in for internal criticism for being overly cautious.

However, some senior figures, notably Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, were very keen on the idea.

Mr Prescott was always quick to whip his card out of the breast pocket.

He had it out at the party conference, he waved it in the House of Commons - he even showed a pledge card to President Clinton when he visited Downing Street.

And embarrassing as the two failures are, the party has kept promises not to raise the basic or higher rates of income tax, to create 250,000 jobs for young people through the New Deal and to cut hospital waiting lists by 100,000.

But its promise on infant class sizes continues to fall short with 30,000 children still in classes of more than 30 pupils.

Last week, a Home Office report showed targets for cutting the time between the arrest and sentence of young offenders would be unlikely to be met this year.

The government had set a target of 71 days between arrest and sentencing. However, the average time remains about 95 days.

'There is more to do'

Social Security Secretary Alistair Darling conceded that there was more to be done.

"Three [pledges] have already been met, one has almost been met. Clearly on youth justice there is more to do," he told BBC2's Newsnight.

A Downing Street spokesman later said Labour should be judged on its entire record in government and not just on the five pledges.

"The government has set out the five pledges and has made significant progress on all of them," said the spokesman.

"If you are doing any take on the performance of the government you have to look across a whole range of issues."

But the Conservatives said Labour's failure to fulfil the pledges showed it could not be trusted.

Party chairman Michael Ancram said: "The cheque is always in the post with this government.

"They made these promises and people know that these promises have not been kept."

Meanwhile, despite the entrenched speculation that the next election will be in May, the prime minister told members of the Parliamentary Labour Party on Wednesday that he has not decided a date for the poll.

But he urged MPs to continue to highlight the government's record while attacking Tory policy.

Mr Blair also rejected criticism of Labour's recent multi-million pound donations.

He said MPs should be pleased the party was attracting benefactors.