Fathers have the right to paternity leave as well

Families with children are being courted by all the political parties.

They all want to extend paid maternity leave and give more flexible leave to both fathers and women who care for sick relatives.

Industry has warned that the plans could damage small businesses.

Labour plans to extend paid maternity leave to 9 months and eventually to 1 year, while the Lib Dems will increase the level of maternity pay for first-time mothers on low incomes.

The Conservatives will let mothers chose the length of paid leave.

After-school places have expanded fastest.

Labour has pledged to increase the number of childcare places and give a larger subsidy to less well-off families to help pay for them.

It also pledges to increase after- school care and nursery places.

Many families still use informal carers, like grandparents, because they cannot afford formal child care.

The Conservatives want a �50 per week tax credit which could be paid to any carer, while Lib Dems want more early care centres.

Labour has introduced a complex system of tax credits to help families with children.

It has increased child benefit, paid to all families, and introduced child tax credits, which are higher for families on low incomes.

It has also increased the allowance for young children for families claiming income support.

There has been a very significant boost to the incomes of the bottom 20% of families with children.

Conservatives question means-tested benefits and want to take more families out of tax by increasing allowances

Labour has pledged to eliminate child poverty "within a generation" and reduce it by 25% by 2005.

Despite some success, recent figures suggest they might fall short of that target.

Poverty rates have come down more slowly for pensioners, and not at all for working age adults.

Critics say the complexity of child benefits has discouraged people from taking them up.

And they argue that it has been jobs, not benefits, that boosted the income of poor families with children.

The government wants to reform incapacity benefit to encourage people back to work

Making work pay has been the centrepiece of Labour's approach to welfare reform.

Young people, mothers with school age children, and now those on incapacity benefit are all being encouraged to seek work rather than stay on benefit.

Labour has changed the tax and benefit system to increase the rewards paid to people with children who stay in work.

But critics say that the system is too expensive and many people would have found jobs anyway.

Inequality overall has remained virtually unchanged under Labour.

Changes in taxes which benefited the poor have been offset by increased earnings among the top income groups.

Labour's objective of equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome, has led to a focus on early childhood.

Key public services like health and higher education are also unequally distributed.

Some measures, such as child trust funds, are aimed at changing the distribution of wealth in a modest way.