Mo Mowlam has spoken out in praise of a Sussex community internet project.

She highlighted the free internet training provided in Brighton and Hove libraries as an example of attempts to provide education to socially excluded people.

More than 1,000 people have benefited from the training last offered between January and March this year in ten libraries across the towns.

Dr Mowlam was speaking at a social exclusion conference in London.

She said: "Many libraries up and down the country are already doing excellent work in opening up access and providing services for socially excluded people."

Sally McMahon, Brighton library technology chief, organised the project.

She said: "What Dr Mowlam said was good news.

"When we first did this we had it as a drop-in session and we were overwhelmed. People were squabbling over it."

Lead councillor for libraries Jackie Lythell confirmed the council had applied to the Government's New Opportunities fund for cash to repeat the project.

She said: "If that comes through, the council can offer free access.

"It's a huge priority. It's all part of life-long learning."

The library training was conducted by the Sussex Community Internet Project (SCIP).

Project manager Mark Walker said: "Libraries are the only realistic basis for developing internet use in a public way."

He said libraries opened reading to the general public when books were expensive and inaccessible and they could now do the same for technology.

He added: "They are becoming more and more important with the growth of the internet."

Dr Mowlam's comments came as official Government statistics revealed just three per cent of the poorest people in Britain have home access to the net.

She said libraries could take it into areas where web access is low.

Libraries could continue their tradition of providing information to communities by taking on new technology, she said.

www.scip.org.uk