Analysis: Milburn's speech

Giving people chances "at every stage" of life was the way forward, the former health secretary and possible leadership contender said in a speech.

He called for tax breaks so more people could own property and shares, along with "fair life chances" for everybody.

Mr Milburn left the Cabinet in 2003 to spend more time with his family.

However, he has returned to frontline politics since then, helping to run Labour's general election campaign last year.

"We have not done enough to recognise there is a power gap in society that needs to be closed," he said while outlining his vision of the Labour policy agenda over the next 10 years.

The inequality gap remained "stubbornly and persistently wide", he claimed.

An 80-20 society, in which 80% do OK but 20% are left behind, might be good enough for the Conservatives, but it should not be good enough for us Alan Milburn

"Indeed while more people are better off, poverty has become more entrenched. We all pay the price.

"The taxpayers who pay the price of social failure, the decent hard-working families who live in fear of crime, the loss we all feel from a declining sense of shared community."

He went on: "An 80-20 society, in which 80% do OK but 20% are left behind, might be good enough for the Conservatives but it should not be good enough for us."

He sought fairness "by giving more people a real stake in society" and "by liberating the potential of each individual as an individual".

There was a need to give people greater control over their lives and a recognition that power should be shared more fairly in society, he said.

Leadership contest

Mr Milburn, 48, refused to comment during the speech on any issues regarding the Labour leadership.

Tony Blair has announced that he will stand down within a year.

He did concede, however, that Labour had "hit trouble" in the past where people felt "the fair rules principle has not been sufficiently or consistently applied".

This had caused "the public outcry over lapses in the criminal justice, asylum and immigration, housing allocation and benefit systems", Mr Milburn said.

Mr Milburn was the health secretary under Tony Blair from 1999 to 2003

Therefore more needed to be done "to align the tax and welfare systems with the concept of fair rules", he claimed.

"People act differently if they own assets. It gives them a real stake in the future. It enables people to act independently and make their own choices.

"Ownership works. It enhances responsibility. After all, nobody ever washed a rental car.

"For these reasons I believe both employee share ownership and home ownership need to be extended far further, driven in part by tax breaks."

He said present government proposals on those matters needed to be "beefed up" to ensure the UK achieved "the highest rates of home and employee share ownership in the world".

This would go some way towards overcoming "the sense of hopelessness that clouds the poorest communities in our country", the Darlington MP said.