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Gloria de Piero MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, in a speech to Labour’s Annual Conference 2014 in Manchester, said:

Thank you Conference and thank you Sam for that report from Women’s Conference.

One thousand Labour women together discussing how we can improve our politics and improve the lives of women.

Ours, a Party with more women MPs than all other Parties combined and a Leader Ed Miliband who is committed to equal representation in his Cabinet, in our Party and our politics.

Yes, we have a lot to celebrate! Let’s also celebrate the thousands of gay and lesbian couples who’ve tied the knot this year and let us never forget it took Labour votes to make this happen.

Just as it took a Labour Government to abolish Section 28, equalise the age of consent, bring about civil partnerships and so much more.

And it will take a Labour Government to keep championing LGBT equality at home and abroad.

This is also my opportunity to pay tribute to the life of someone who spent their life campaigning for Labour values. As Chair of Disability Labour and our Equalities Committee, Nicholas Russell was one of the people who made sure our Party lives up to its values of equality in everything we do and he will be greatly missed.
Labour will continue to fight for the rights of disabled people, ending the Bedroom tax, tackling hate crime.

It’s because of Labour values that we can be proud to be the Party of pioneers from Keith Vaz to Dianne Abbott to Rushanara Ali and why we will keep working to increase ethnic minority representation across every level of our politics and public life.
We’re Labour because we believe all of us have the right to live in dignity free from discrimination.

We’re Labour because we believe it shouldn’t matter if you are able-bodied or not; where you were born; or the colour of your skin. It shouldn’t matter if you’re a man or woman; it shouldn’t matter who you love. What matters is your determination and passion to fulfil your potential.

It’s a principle that should hold true whether you’re born on a council estate or a country estate, but too often that’s just not the case.

We talk a lot about smashing glass ceilings and rightly so but the Labour Party will never forget about the people who can’t even get through the door of the building.
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Because if you’re born poor, you are more likely to stay poor in this country than in other wealthy nations.

There are ladders that can be used to climb up and get on but they aren’t being extended to everyone.

Politics, law, journalism, business – wonderful jobs. But they still operate like closed-shops.

Three quarters of senior judges, nearly half of journalists – are from the private schools which educate just seven per cent of the population. This is not an accident of talent. This is inequality of opportunity entrenched in the recruitment practices of professions that hire in their own image.

I have a really bright lad from Ashfield - Jack. He doesn’t come from privilege, and wants to work in the Foreign Office.

But Jack heard this discussed on the radio and he said to me – “how do I have a chance?” I didn’t go to Oxbridge, I don’t know anyone who’s worked in these jobs.

The Civil Service should set the standard on open recruitment and open opportunity.

Listen to the latest statistic. Of the 654 graduates who made it on to the Civil Service Fast- Stream, just 25 were from working class backgrounds.

It makes me angry. Conference, talent is class-blind, but Britain is still not.

The ex-Scottish Union leader Jimmy Reid used to talk about looking behind the windows of every council estate and high-rise flat.

Because behind every one of those windows – there is someone who might be a Judge, a Vice Chancellor, a politician, a CEO.

Look at Alan Johnson – all the way from the London slums to the Cabinet table, never went to University, but an Orwell book prize winner. We need more of these stories.

But this Government won’t act. Why would they change a system that suits them?

This is a Tory Party that auctions off top internships to the highest bidder at its fundraisers.

A Tory Party with more privately educated members of the Cabinet than women.

It’s no wonder they haven’t adopted a single recommendation that Alan Milburn’s Social Mobility Commission have made.

Well today I’m announcing that a Labour Government will act.

Work experience is hugely important for young people; it can open so many doors, but we need to make sure it opens doors for everyone, not just those in the know.

It’s up to all of us – Government, businesses, Trade Unions, to work together on this.

Not only is this right, but the whole of Britain benefits when we release all of Britain’s talent.

And there are people doing it. Here’s a publication you don’t hear praised that often at a Labour Conference – the Spectator magazine. Each Summer it takes work experience kids from the Social Mobility Foundation scheme giving bright students without connections that foot in the door. I congratulate them for it.

Good companies already monitor the race, gender and disability of their staff. They should monitor social background for the same reason.

The legal profession is already doing it, others should follow.

So today I can tell you today that a Labour Government will work to ensure this is done in the public sector.
Let’s be clear. This is not something we will fix overnight. But up and down Britain there are community leaders, businesses, teachers, social entrepreneurs working tirelessly for a fairer system, often against the odds.

We must be learning from them, not telling them leave it to us in politics.

But a Labour Government will be on your side, standing by you, offering you the tools to build a fairer society, because Social mobility is our mission.

But to be credible we have to look at our politics and our political party to improve access.

Politics cannot be the privilege of the few. Today half of MPs and Peers went to fee-paying schools. Just 25 MPs out of 650 have worked in manual jobs.
Look round the room – no other party can come close to representing the people of Britain in the way that we do.

We are the Party that sent working class men and women to Parliament and it will be up to our Party to bring more working class voices to Parliament.

Why a Labour Party led by Ed Miliband will increase the talent pool and bring more women, more ethnic minority, more disabled people of all experiences into politics too.

We have some amazing candidates from all backgrounds and walks of life, but let me mention just a few.

Lee Sheriff in Carlisle who worked in a clothes store; Amina Lone in Morecambe, a single mum running a charity tackling poverty; Lisa Forbes in Peterborough, ex-travel agent.

We need more of these voices in our politics and it’s all of us who’ll get them there, because getting them elected means changing our politics.

Opening up our politics and opening up our country so that it doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, what your story is.

Under Labour’s Britain anyone can fulfil their potential.

Ends