Gordon Brown has repeated his call for world leaders to seal a 'global newdeal' at the London Summit, to tackle the global financial crisis and ensure economic prosperity for everyone.

Addressing a joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday during his visit to Washington, the British Prime Minister said that an economic hurricane had swept the world, creating a crisis of credit and of confidence.

He told the legislators that the world’s leaders must now shape global markets to meet the needs of people, to restore prosperity and protect the planet – working together to 'build tomorrow today'.

'No-one should forget that it was American visionaries who over half a century ago, coming out of the deepest of depressions and the worst of wars, produced the boldest of plans for global economic cooperation,' he said, 'because they recognised prosperity was indivisible and concluded that to be sustained it had to be shared.

'And I believe that ours too is a time for renewal, for a plan for tackling recession and building for the future - every continent playing its part in a global new deal, a plan for prosperity that can benefit us all.'

Mr Brown was speaking the day after his meeting with President Barack Obama, when the two leaders pledged to work together to solve the world’s economic problems. He is only the fifth UK Prime Minister tos peak to both houses of Congress, following in the footsteps of Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.'

In his speech to Congressmen and Senators, Mr Brown said ordinary people were worried about losing their jobs, or their houses, or their businesses. 'When banks have failed and markets have faltered, we the representatives of the people have to be the people’s last line of defence … And if perhaps some once thought it beyond our power to shape global markets to meet the needs of people, we know now that is our duty; we cannot and must not stand aside.'

He went on to say: 'History has brought us now to a point where change is essential. We are summoned not just to manage our times but to transform them. Our task is to rebuild prosperity and security in a wholly different economic world, where competition is no longer local but global andbanks are no longer just national but international.

'We need to understand what went wrong in this crisis, that the very financialinstruments that were designed to diversify risk across the bankingsystem instead spread contagion across the globe. Today’s financial institutions are so interwoven that a bad bank anywhere is a threat to good banks everywhere.'

Mr Brown urged world leaders to stand firm against protectionism and to outlaw shadow banking systems and offshore tax havens. He also outlined the elements of his global new deal:

• To reform the banking system so it serves prosperity rather than risking it.
• A coordinated global fiscal and interest rate stimulus.
• Renewed international economic cooperation, focused on a low carbon recovery worldwide.
• And renewed efforts to help the poorest people in the world.

'Working together there is no challenge to which we are not equal, no obstacle that we cannot overcome, no aspiration so high that it cannot be achieved,' he concluded. 'Let us restore prosperity and protect this planet and, with faith in the future, let us together build tomorrow today.'