Former Labour deputy leader Roy Hattersley has said the government needs to do more to help the non-working poor.

The senior party figure told ePolitix.com that ministers have "neglected" this key constituency and needed to shift to a more radical track.

In an interview with this website Hattersley said Labour deserves credit for its record on redistribution, but has focused too much on people in work.

"I want us to concentrate more on helping the poor who are not at work," he said.

"The working poor - because of the minimum wage, because of the minimum income guarantee, because of tax credits - have been treated wonderfully well by the Labour Party. And that is what they ought to do.

"But we have neglected that majority of people who do not have jobs, either through age or simply because there are no jobs in their areas. I want us to do more for them."

And he called for an overhaul of the party's policies of choice in schools and hospitals if it is to realise its longstanding ambitions of equality.

"I want to see more structural change that will encourage the equality and redistribution that I hope to see," Hattersley said.

"That means a return to the old values of comprehensive education.

"I don't believe that comprehensive education is achieved by having a hierarchy of different schools.

"I don't believe that it will help the poor to have a hierarchy of different hospitals."

The former Birmingham MP also heaped praise on chancellor Gordon Brown, although he stops short of calling for a change of leadership at the top of the Labour Party.

"I thought the chancellor made a wonderful conference address. I was moved by it," Hattersley said.

"The chancellor often speaks in the language that I share, he is the party man, a party man from head to toe.

"And that was a Labour Party speech, talking about the Labour Party in Labour Party terms.

"It was one of the best speeches, apart from leaders' speeches which are special, that I have ever heard at a Labour Party conference."