When at a headteachers conference last weekend I said all schools needed to do more to raise the achievement of the poorest children, some people accused me of launching an attack on the “middle classes”. I guess that reaction is all too predictable from some quarters. But surely any notion of a fair society must mean that the best possible start in life should be a right for every child in every school and not just some children in some schools.

We should be proud that under Labour schools in the most deprived areas have seen the fastest rises in results, with the gap between the poorest children and the rest narrowing year on year. But despite all this progress, it’s still the case that a child from a poor family is half as likely to get five good GCSEs.

So there is a challenge for all schools to do more to help break the historic link between poverty and attainment. And with over a quarter of all children on free schools meals going to schools with below average levels of disadvantage, this is a challenge for every school – in urban and rural areas, and including those where average attainment is high.

Narrowing the gap between the poorest children and the rest is an essential part of Labour’s long-term goal of abolishing child poverty in a generation. This is an ambitious goal. But it is right – morally and economically too.

So today’s tenth anniversary of that historic pledge is rightly a cause for celebration. Without the pressure and driving force of that radical target – and the milestones along the way – it’s unlikely that 600,000 children would have been lifted out of poverty over the last decade.

Of course, as progressives, we all wish it had fallen further and faster. But after two decades in which child poverty more than doubled, we should be proud of what we’ve achieved. And it hasn’t happened by accident: had we continued with the same policies in 1997 child poverty would have soared by 1.9 million. Last year’s figures did show a slight rise – but the statistics do not yet show the effect of all the extra investment to boost family incomes in the last couple of years.

So today we must reaffirm and recommit ourselves to ending child poverty once and for all as we take the bold step of enshrining our pledge in law. All of us in government remain as determined as ever to meet our ambitious targets on child poverty.

And to those who argue that the recession means tackling child poverty has to be put on the back-burner, I say the opposite is the case. As the prime minister and chancellor have said it’s in challenging times like these that government must support families and protect the most vulnerable. In both good times and more difficult ones we have continued to prioritise child poverty: last year’s Budget alone invested an extra £1bn to take us a huge step closer to our 2010 target.

Investing in universal child benefit alongside targeted tax credits has been and will remain a vital tool in our armoury. But we will only end child poverty by stopping it passing from one generation to the next. Great schools, high quality childcare and helping parents back into work are essential to our long-term strategy so that today’s poor children don’t become tomorrow’s poor parents.

In recent weeks some have argued that my department should just be about schools and raising standards, that it shouldn’t concern itself with the poverty, health or well-being of children. But that totally misses the point. The truth is we’ll only raise standards further in our schools by accelerating reforms like National Challenge and the academies programme and at the same time tackling all the barriers to children’s learning and achievement.

It means investing in the early years too because early intervention means better outcomes later on. That’s why we now have almost 3,000 Sure Start Children’s Centres and are extending free childcare for three and four year olds to the poorest two year olds too.

But as we all know the Tories want to slash spending on Sure Start. And just like the Liberal Democrats, the Tories oppose the very tax credits which have helped hundreds of thousands of families out of poverty and into work. For all their warm words and their absurd claim to be ‘progressive conservatives’, the Tories have opposed us every step of the way.

They claim to want to end child poverty, but call it an “aspiration” rather than a pledge. They’ll criticise ministers today for not making enough progress, but they’ve opposed all the investment and measures we’ve taken to get this far. And their policies on education would entrench advantage rather than spread it.

So as we celebrate the tenth anniversary of our child poverty commitment, let’s remember that it’s only a Labour government which could ever have made such a bold and radical pledge. And it’s only a Labour government which will deliver it.