Brown urges free markets to exercise common decency

In a speech to faith leaders and charity workers ahead of the G20 crisis summit in London on Thursday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown will reaffirm his support for free markets while urging policy-makers to overhaul the rules that govern them.

"Our task today is to bring the imperatives served by our financial markets into proper alignment with the values held by families and business people across our country -- hard work, taking responsibility, being honest, being fair," Brown will say, according to extracts of his speech.

"Most people want a system where the market is free. But it must never be values-free. It must be fair, but not laissez-faire. And so our task is to agree global economic rules that reflect the enduring values that we cherish elsewhere," Brown will say.

The April 2 summit in London of leaders of the Group of 20 industrialized and emerging economic powers is expected to deliver detailed measures to combat the worst economic crisis since the 1930s.