Tackling the social breakdown of Britain needs to be given a higher priority than the current economic crisis, former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith has said.

Saving the next generation from a life of poverty and violence "should be above party politics", he told the Conservative conference in Birmingham.

To a standing ovation, he said: "Today as we watch the markets in free fall, we have fear - we fear for ourselves and our families and our jobs and our livelihoods.

"But we must hold the fear of what may happen to the next generation in our heads and recognise that if we fear to act because of today's headlines, we may get what we fear in 15 years time."

Duncan Smith, the chairman of the Centre for Social Justice, said the "culture of the streets" was taking over in many communities.

"Dysfunctional" families were not giving enough care and empathy to their "dysfunctional" children and the cycle was self-perpetuating, he argued.

Every 22 minutes, a UK teenager tried to kill themselves, Duncan Smith said. One in five girls aged between 15 and 17 had self-harmed.

He urged people to act now and said it was costing the public billions of pounds on police and the justice system.