The final report of the Fabian Commission on Life Chances and Child Poverty, 'Narrowing the Gap' provides a comprehensive audit of inequality in Britain, setting out the agenda for change which can make life chances in Britain more equal. The report challenges government, all political parties, civil society and the broader public to make talk of social justice a reality.

This book is generating a significant debate by offering a compelling agenda which can be central to the next generation of British politics.

The report was launched with a panel debate on how the government can get back on track to end child poverty, with Ed Balls, John Denham and Polly Toynbee, and a Fabian life chances lecture by David Miliband. It has generated a great deal of political and media response.

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Narrowing the Gap, the final report of the Fabian Commission on life chances and child poverty, sets out a strategy for tackling inequality in Britain today. The report sets out the facts about unequal Britain - where one in five children are growing up in poverty and where life chances are. Children of working-class parents are twice as likely to die before their first birthday, half as likely to get five good GCSE grades, and fifteen times less likely to end up as middle-class as their peers who are born to professional parents.

Narrowing the Gap sets out why reducing inequalities in life chances is essential to making Britain fairer. It examines how the public argument for a more equal society can be won, drawing on the Commission's original research into public attitudes to argue that a life chances approach can build a wider coalition than an exclusive focus on poverty would achieve. It sets out a challenging policy reform agenda, arguing that this must be central to the 2007 comprehensive spending review if the government is to halve child poverty by 2010 and reduce inequalities in life chances.

This will take a significant commitment of resources and political will. With each of the major political parties now using the language of social justice, this report sets out a credibility test by which visions of a more equal society can be judged. Narrowing the Gap seeks to put the goal of equalising life chances at the heart of a new progressive consensus in British politics.

The Fabian Commission on Life Chances and Child Poverty

Narrowing the Gap is the final report of the Fabian Commission on Life Chances and Child Poverty. The Commission is chaired by Lord Victor Adebowale, Chief Executive of Turning Point, and its members are Fran Bennett, Ruth Cadbury, Richard Exell, Ruth Lister, David Piachaud, Aftab Rahman, Andrew Robinson, Peter Townsend and Polly Toynbee. The report's authors are Louise Bamfield and Richard Brooks of the Fabian Society.

The Fabian Society is grateful to the Barrow Cadbury Trust, the Sutton Trust, the Webb Memorial Trust and the Dartmouth Street Trust for their support of the Commission.

• Responses to the Life Chances Commission

"The Fabian Commission has produced a route map that leads to a fairer Britain"

—Editorial, The Guardian

"Every government needs to renew as well as deliver. Let this report be the start of a process that leads to a manifesto and a new government that makes choice not fate the expectation of the majority"

—David Miliband MP

"It's just a year until the next comprehensive spending review is set in stone. That's a year before Labour's direction and speed of travel is fixed in the run-up to the next election, and the last chance to set priorities that could halve child poverty by 2010 and transform children's life chances. Today the Fabians offer Gordon Brown a route map for reaching that goal - and a way to recapture political optimism. Social justice is, after all, what Labour is in power for."

—Polly Toynbee, The Guardian