Ashdown Sees Five Giants

Ashdown Wants Guardian Angels In Welfare Reform

All parties agree that welfare is one of the trickiest problems of all, and Mr Ashdown, making his first big policy speech since the election, will talk about social change at the Barber Institute at the University of Birmingham.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he outlined the "Five New Great Giants" and how Government and "Guardian Angels" may help the people deal with them.

His "Giants" are Poverty, Unemployment, Insecurity, Inadequate Education and Exclusion. According to Mr Ashdown, these challenges face both Government and people of Britain, and make up a set of social circumstances which are new to post-War Britain.

James Naughtie interviews Paddy Ashdown on the Today programme (dur 4'40")

Insisting that he was not making a policy statement, but merely starting a process of debate, the Liberal Democrat leader called for politicians to "cast aside dogma and take a clear eyed look at what needs to be done.". We need to "build a concensus across and between parties", he said, "to gain a sense of national unity about what must be done."

Mr Ashdown proposes that people should be equipped with three "Guardian Angels":

• Opportunity
  for more education and training
• Independence
  with the Welfare system giving individuals help and choices to protect themselves and
• Security

Asked how this idea would discourage reliance on the welfare system, Mr Ashdown said the key was for the Government to get a balance between compassion and self-reliance.

He said people should be encouraged to create a "Security Portfolio", including measures such as private pensions, but that the Government would still provide a safety-net for those less well off. The role of the State, he said, was as "an assurer of basic entitlement, and an ensurer that policy is delivered."

On Education