Suggestions that Labour has presided over a debt-based economy should give due consideration to the number of people who have managed to buy their own home over the past decade, the prime minister has said.

While an increasing amount of debt has meant that some are now looking to bad credit mortgages in order to ensure that they manage to keep themselves on the property ladder, the facts are that almost two million more Britons have been created under Labour, Gordon Brown has told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show.

As had been suggested by others in previous weeks, the PM points to the strong economy to support his argument - with low inflation and interest rates, borrowers feel safe enough to risk that little bit more in order to buy a home.

"[The debt that] the Conservatives are talking about is large numbers of people who have been able to take out mortgages and buy their homes for the first time," Mr Brown told the programme.

"That is a good thing, not a bad thing," he asserted.