Labour's policy and campaign chief Alan Milburn has said the government's drive towards choice in the public sector is a response to a "tidal wave" of demands from voters.

In an interview with the Guardian ahead of this weekend's party spring conference, the Cabinet minister says: "Now the public debate is this: people exercise choice in every other branch of their life; increasingly they recognise that the private sector offers choice; that is a real problem for the public sector. I worry about that a lot.

"If the private sector offers choice and the public sector does not, it ceases to command confidence. It's also an egalitarian argument.

"[Demand for] choice is out there; if we try to avoid it, there will be a tidal wave. It's inevitable. It's coming. What we want a system [of choice] based on need, not the size of your wallet."

He also denies being behind briefings that he did not want Charles Clarke as home secretary and that Labour's leading women ministers are too "posh" for most of the electorate to like.