Labour leader Ed Miliband is setting-out his vision for creating a new carrot-and-stick culture to ensure that employers, workers and public housing tennants are rewarded for their contribution to society.
Mr Milliband grabbed the headlines at the weekend with a pledge that a future Labour government would cap university tuition fees at £6000, rather than the £9000 introduced by the Tory-Lib/Dem Coalition
Addressing the Labour Conference in Liverpool on Tuesday Mr Milliband said: "There is a quiet crisis which doesn’t get the headlines.
"It’s about the people who don’t make a fuss, who don’t hack phones, loot shops, fiddle their expenses, or earn telephone number salaries at the banks.
"The quiet crisis…points to something deep in our country. The failure of a system. A way of doing things. A set of rules. An economy and a society too often rewarding not the right people with the right values, but the wrong people with the wrong values.
"Labour will always stand as the voice of the people, our people. Their values will be heard. And we will challenge the vested interests that benefit when the wrong values are rewarded.
"Never again should they be able to take advantage of a system which doesn’t work to the values and instincts of decent people in our country.
"We need a new bargain. Based on a different set of values."
Mr Miliband is calling for radical changes in the way businesses are rewarded to create a something for something deal in our economy.
He will challenge the idea that all businesses are the same and will call for rewards and incentives linked to the long-term value they create and the wealth they build.
Mr Miliband will say businesses which secure governments contracts will be required to offer young people apprenticeships. And he will open up the prospect of major reforms to the tax and regulation system to create incentives for companies that make a wider contribution to the economy, e.g. through long-term investment or building skills.
He said: "If people make money and profit through hard work, hard graft, something for something, let’s praise them.
"Let me tell you what the problem is with these Tories.
"They don’t understand who the real wealth creators of this country are, or the values our economy needs for them to succeed.
"They talk as if the CEOs and the executives are the only people who create wealth. The small businesses that are the lifeblood of our economy are the wealth creators.
"The scientists and innovators are our wealth creators and the young apprentices are the wealth creators.
"The wealth of our nation is built by the hands not just of the elite few but every man and woman who goes out and does a day’s work
"You’ve been told all growth is the same, all business is the same, but it’s not.
"You’ve been told that the choice in politics is whether parties are pro-business or anti-business.
"But all parties must be pro-business today
"If it ever was, that’s not the real choice any more.
"Let me tell you what the 21st century choice is: Are you on the side of the wealth creators or the asset strippers?
"For years as a country we have been neutral in that battle.
"They’ve been taxed the same. Regulated the same. Treated the same. Celebrated the same.
"They won’t be by me."
Ed Miliband heralded radical change in our welfare system to create a new something for something deal for those on benefits.
He will set out plans for social housing allocation which will require local authorities to take into account not just need but also contribution – whether recipients are working, whether they look after their property and are good neighbours
He will say: "If what you want is a welfare system that works for working people as well as all of us when we fall on hard times, I’m prepared to take the tough decisions to make that a reality.
"The hard truth is that, even after reforms of recent years, we still have a system where reward for work is not high enough, where benefits are too easy to come by for those who abuse the system and don’t work for those who do right thing.
"When we have a housing shortage choices have to be made.
"Do we treat the person who contributes to their community the same as the person who doesn’t?
"My answer is no.
"Our first duty should be to help the person who shows responsibility.
"And I say every council should recognise the contribution that people are making."
Mr Miliband set -ut his priority for reform in schools to create a new something for something deal for young people which rewards hard work for those state school kids who get the grades.
Citing figures from the Sutton Trust he will say that currently 3000 state school children get the grades but miss out on a place at the most competitive universities.
He will go further than any Labour leader has previously in challenging low aspiration and low ambition in schools that leads to many bright kids not even applying for university.
And he will pledge to cut tuition fees from £9,000 to £6,000 by making better off graduates pay more and reversing the corporation tax for banks.
He said: "We can’t afford to carry on with so many young people locked out of opportunity.
Three thousand of our brightest young people, at state schools, get the grades to go to our most competitive Universities but never go, some because the universities don’t give them the chance they deserve.
"Many don’t even apply. For thousands of talented young people it creates a sense that there is no something for something deal. That hard work is not rewarded.
"The truth is that the problem in some of our schools is not just investment. It’s also about values.
"Of bright children held back when aspirations are low or when closed circles at the top of society shut them out.
"In any one year more than a quarter of our schools don’t even send 5 kids to the most competitive Universities.
"Is anyone seriously telling me that there aren’t five pupils at any of those schools who aren’t good enough to go to a top university?
"It makes no sense. It deminishes ambition - It’s anti-aspiration. It’s got to change.
"No one can tell me that Britain wouldn’t be better if we made use of all our talents, rather than just a few.
"So here is my challenge to those schools and Universities.
"Raise your game. To those schools not doing enough I say: Lift your ambition, lift your sights.
"Our country can’t afford aspiration held back. To the Universities not opening up I say:
"Open your eyes, open your doors. Our country can’t afford ambitions betrayed."
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