Brown rules out Budget giveaway

Mr Brown says Labour will always seek stability

Chancellor Gordon Brown has defended the government's "hard-won stability" and promised to avoid the economic mistakes of previous Labour administrations.

Speaking at Labour's spring conference in Glasgow, expected to be the last major party gathering before a May general election, he said there would be "no return to the irresponsible pre-election giveaways of the past".

Our manifesto will ... [reject] a return to the stop-go quick-fix indiscipline of the Tory years

Chancellor Gordon Brown

Mr Brown said that the government would target "full" employment in every region during the next decade, "matching unemployed to skill shortages" in industries such as finance and IT.

But he insisted any tax cuts in the 7 March Budget would be "responsible" and "affordable".

He also told delegates that the stable UK economy meant the current government had the best opportunity ever of securing a second full Labour term.

"We are now able to make the case for a second term with employment increasing, investment set to rise, economic efficiency," he said.

Mr Brown highlighted the mistakes of previous Labour governments who had spent early in their terms and been forced to "retrench and cut back" later.

"We are now able to raise our sights.

"The foundation for everything we do is economic stability."

He emphasised that Labour's manifesto would reject "a return to stop-go quick-fix indiscipline of the Tory years".

'Irresponsible' Tories

Mr Brown said the "principle" of the working families tax credit would be extended to people without children.

And he said the government would introduce "responsible tax cuts where affordable, for families, pensioners, savings and investment".

"But there will be no return to the irresponsible pre-election giveaways of the past.

"Unlike the Tories with their irresponsible, unfunded, unaffordable and unbelievable tax promises, nothing we do will put stability or essential public services at risk."

He talks a good game, but it is all spin and no delivery. He talks right, but he acts left

William Hague

"In the first term we have put stability first. In the second term we will put stability first, every term of a Labour government will put stability first."

He also pledged to halve child poverty by 2010 and eradicate it within a generation, saying it was "a scar on the soul of Britain".

Speaking before Mr Brown, Leader of the Commons Margaret Beckett warned conference delegates that Labour voters should avoid apathy in the face of the Tory election threat.

"They want to kill hope and expectation and to foster disillusionment because they know that people don't need to vote for them.

Majority danger

"If one in five decided not to vote who last time voted for us our majority is cut by 120."

But Tory leader William Hague dismissed Mr Brown's claims.

On a campaigning tour of East Anglia, he said: "For all Gordon Brown's boasts, his talk of prudence and his claims to have ended boom and bust, he is setting a course for the British economy that threatens to throw away the best opportunity we have had for decades.

"He talks a good game, but it is all spin and no delivery. He talks right, but he acts left."