Blair claims to lead party of the family

Labour pledges `practical help' for working mothers as conference on what women want is told that politicians ignore issues which affect the family

BY PATRICIA WYNN DAVIES

Political Correspondent

Tony Blair proclaimed Labour the new "party of the family" yesterday, while pledging to ditch "politically correct" theorising about women in favour of practical help for working mothers.

The Labour leader said he had "no doubt at all that the family is and will remain the essential foundation of a strong a stable society". The Tories had long forfeited their claim to represent it.

"In particular, the Tories are failing the family in one essential area of modern family life: how women are able to balance responsibility for their family with their desire and often necessity to work," he said.

But Mr Blair's own "new deal" for working mothers was set out only in the broadest possible terms in a speech to yesterday's She magazine conference in London, under the banner of "What Do Women Want".

Families were under strain because of a tax and benefit system weighted against them, a bungled child support system, inadequate community care and cuts in training, with women feeling the brunt, he said.

Mr Blair made no apologies for his preference for the traditional family life, dismissing the view held by "the left" that "individual freedom in lifestyle could not be contrained by any particular form of social unit".

But the right had merely mouthed platitudes about "family values", leaving an area of profound importance uninhabited by policy or strategy.

"We need fewer politicians talking about family values. What we need are politicians who value families, whatever their circumstances.

"The job of government is to do all it can to reduce the conditions that lead to a family break-up and thereby support families," he said.

In the second of a series of speeches highlighting sections of the proposed new Clause IV, Mr Blair emphasised that last week's Spectator lecture on rights and duties was not aimed at converting middle-England Tories but at reclaiming those values on behalf of ordinary people struggling to live decent lives.

While arguing against shunting "women's issues" into a special compartment, Mr Blair said women needed help to minimise any conflict between the demands of work and family. He maintained that the Labour "new deal" for working mothers would deliver:

nFlexible benefits to make it worthwhile for the wife of an unemployed man to go back to work. But details of the practical financial impact of the reform are likely to remain vague until the next election manifesto is written.

nA "pro-active" re-employment service and a national computerised vacancy databank, which Mr Blair said would provide more opportunities to search for and find work.

nIntensive training for mothers returning to work and the chance to return part-time, which some employers offer, but with no commitment over how such opportunities could be open to all returners

nQuality childcare and nursery provision, by local authorities drawing up local childcare strategies "in partnership with business, the voluntary sector and local people."