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David Cameron is to set out plans to encourage a culture of responsibility to improve life in some of Britain's poorest communities, with a speech in which he claims the Conservatives are now "best-placed to fight poverty in our country".
The Tory leader will accuse the Labour Government of failing the poor because of a "big government" approach which makes people dependent on the state and perpetuates poverty.
And he will say that a Tory administration will use state budgets to pay "social entrepreneurs" to deliver public services in place of Government agencies.
Labour's Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper accused the Tory leader of preparing the way for "a return to the Thatcherite approach that caused long-term unemployment to soar and child poverty to double".
But Mr Cameron insisted that Tories do not want the state to withdraw from society but to "use the state to remake society" by supporting activists and civic institutions and encouraging the broad mass of the population to become involved in making their own community better.
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He will accuse Gordon Brown's government of a "moral failure" for creating a system in which it pays not to work and not to look after your children and where young women can more easily obtain a home and money by having a child alone than by waiting until they have a job and a loving relationship.
"Our alternative to big government is not no government," Mr Cameron will say in the annual Hugo Young lecture in London. "Our alternative to big government is the big society, but we understand that the big society is not just going to spring to life on its own: we need strong and concerted government action to make it happen. We need to use the state to remake society."
"The era of big government has run its course," Mr Cameron will say. "Poverty and inequality have got worse, despite Labour's massive expansion of the state.
"We need new answers now, and they will only come from a bigger society, not bigger government. That's why it's now clear to me that the Conservatives, not Labour, are best placed to fight poverty in our country."
Ms Cooper said: "It is dishonest for David Cameron to pretend that the proposals in this speech would reduce poverty when, behind the rhetoric, this is simply a return to the Thatcherite approach that caused long-term unemployment to soar and child poverty to double."
