TACKLING world poverty should be a top priority for the developed world said Pendle MP Gordon Prentice.

Speaking at Westminster, Mr Prentice said it was in the interests of the developed countries to help the under-developed world overcome their deep poverty.

"It should be a new crusade for all of us," he said.

The MP last year congratulated Pendle churches for their contribution to the Jubilee 2000 debt relief campaign and applauded the government initiative to wipe out the debt owed to the UK by 41 of the world's poorest nations.

He said the government had increased the aid budget by 45 per cent in real terms between 1997 and 2003/4 and refocused all of the UK's development effort on the reduction of extreme poverty.