Teenage mothers in UK who apply for State assistance should be placed in a supervised network of homes instead of being given a council home, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has proposed.

In the keynote speech of this week’s Labour conference, Mr Brown said that it was “time to address a problem that for too long has gone unspoken, the number of children having children”.

He added that it could not be right “for a girl of sixteen, to get pregnant, be given the keys to a council flat and be left on her own”.

Instead, he said Labour policy would now be to place all 16 and 17 year old parents who get support from the taxpayer will in a network of supervised homes.

These homes will be teenage mothers will also be given lessons on responsibility and how to raise their children properly.

Up to 100 young people will be housed in each “foyer”, with social services, health care and education facilities. Government sources said only young mothers who applied for council housing would be placed in the new facilities. There would be no compulsion.

He added: “We won’t ever shy away from taking difficult decisions on tough social questions.”

The majority, Mr Brown went on, “feel the odds are stacked in favour of a minority, who will talk about their rights, but never accept their responsibilities”.

Referring to the increase in family breakdown and the risks posed to children by the internet, society needed to be “explicit about the boundaries between right and wrong- and about the new responsibilities we demand of people in return for the rights they have,” he continued.

The Prime Minister added that he stood “with the people who are sick and tired of others playing by different rules or no rules at all.”

Mr Brown added that a new policy of “tough love” would be implemented as regards the parents of children involved in anti-social behaviour.

He said that Government policy would support family intervention projects designed to tackle anti-social behaviour. Such programmes target the parents as well as the children. In extreme circumstances, the children may be taken away from the parents.

Mr Brown said that every time a young person breached an Anti Social Behaviour Order “there will be an order, not just on them but on their parents, and if that is broken they will pay the price”.

He described the policy as “a no nonsense approach with help for those who want to change and proper penalties for those who don’t or won’t”.

The new policy marks a major shift in Labour’s stance on social issues.

The Conservatives, under David Cameron, have made the issue of “Broken Britain” a key plank in their policy platform unveiling plans to promote marriage and to tackle anti-social behaviour.

In sharp contrast, Labour have downplayed such issues, claiming that the Tory stance was judgemental and unnecessary.

Mr Brown’s remarks is being seen as a tacit admission that the Conservatives platform on social issues is a politically powerful one.