] Historians, writing in the future, will find it strange and difficult to understand that the Government have delayed so long in taking any steps to deal with the Crisis in Our Balance of payments which is the inevitable result of their policy, and which could so clearly be seen to be coming on.

It is a Crisis of the Balance of payments, out of which we can only produce and export our way.

Inflation and the things that flow from it, such as the Crisis in Our Balance of payments, have been the main factors in the setback to our arms programme, and it is the duty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to do what he can to put these things right, and he is now engaged upon doing so.

Mr. Lee asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in view of the Australian import cuts, what steps he is taking to expand our exports to the level necessary to avoid a Crisis in Our Balance of payments.

it appears, there is a serious Crisis in Our Balance of payments.

A rise in the cost of living may be compensated for by increased pensions and wage demands, but when one is in the sort of danger with which we are now faced, when it is not possible to compensate for the increased cost of living, without, possibly, causing an acute Crisis in Our Balance of payments, it is imperative to check the rise in the cost of living.

Everybody knows that the course led to an autumn Budget and a Crisis in Our Balance of payments.

The relative price stability of 1958 would not have been achieved and we should have had a Crisis in Our Balance of payments.

I have studied the speeches of right hon. Gentlemen and the party documents and have tried to find the answer to the question of how they can achieve this great expansion and pump into the economy all the purchasing power that they talk about without a return to inflation, rising prices and a Crisis of Balance of payments.

increase in productivity every year to offset inflation and the possibility of a yearly financial Crisis in Balance of payments, we ought to be stimulating people to produce the machines that will give us that kind of productivity.

We now find, after only a few weeks, that there is a cry for economy and talk of an international Crisis in the Balance of payments.

These things have to be done without causing a Crisis in the Balance of payments.

It should be possible to get over, as I have said in previous debates, the terrible disability of a Crisis in Our Balance of payments when we export substantial capital to the Commonwealth.

On the other hand, the moment that restrictions are eased we have inflation and a Crisis in Our Balance of payments.

Repeatedly, in past years, a Crisis in Our Balance of payments has been met by reducing the level of industrial activity well below our productive capacity, producing not only under-capacity working but short time and under-employment.

I have never accepted the fact, and hon. Members should not attribute it to the Government, that this Bill was brought in only to deal with a particular Crisis in the Balance of payments.

There is also the imbalance, the permanent Crisis of the Balance of payments, but the astonishing thing is that, in real terms this country is in balance when we include the invisibles - a fact that seems to be continually forgotten.

To press the economy forward at a higher rate than its current potential would lead again to a Crisis in the Balance of payments.

It was done by the former Government primarily to overcome the Crisis in Our Balance of payments.

In June, 1970, he sought for electoral purposes to falsify our record balance of payments success by saying that we had passed the peak and were facing a Crisis in Our Balance of payments.

Lastly, Article 109 of the Rome Treaty says: "Where a sudden Crisis in the Balance of payments occurs …"— perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman might accept that if it is not "sudden" it is at least a crisis— "… the Member States concerned may, as a precaution, take the necessary protective measures".

Lastly, Article 109 of the Rome Treaty says:Where a sudden Crisis in the Balance of payments occurs …" - perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman might accept that if it is not "sudden" it is at least a crisis - … the Member States concerned may, as a precaution, take the necessary protective measures.

Article 109 of the Treaty of Rome permits member States to take emergency measures "where a sudden Crisis in the Balance of payments occurs".

In introducing the measure the Italian Government appealed to article 109 of the Treaty of Rome, which allows member States to take certain measures where a sudden Crisis in the Balance of payments occurs.

If we are not to say - recalling a memorable phrase of the Prime Minister - "steady as she sinks", and if we are not simply to accept the "same as before" recipe, which seems to be implied in the Queen's Speech, we have to consider where we could have some reflation of the ecomomy without the dangers, of which the Prime Minister warned, of a general reflation resulting in a Crisis in Our Balance of trade.

Does he agree that within the past 12 months our balance of payments has deteriorated by no less than £5,000 million and that we are heading for the most serious Crisis in Our Balance of payments in the year ahead?

Will that not mean a rapidly growing Crisis in Our Balance of payments?

There is a Crisis in the Balance of payments and a trade deficit in manufacturing.

As hon. Member after hon. Member today and yesterday have observed, there is, alas, nothing in the Queen's Speech which deals with the three crucial problems of the British economy-the level of unemployment, the decline in manufacturing industry and the growing Crisis in Our Balance of payments.

Consequently, to some extent, when the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook says that there will be a Crisis in Balance of payments this year he is correct.

We still have a Crisis in the Balance of payments, the balance of manufacturing and the balance of trade.

They then said that there would be a Crisis in the Balance of payments - we are told that it is just around the corner.

Is that not a major reason for the Crisis in the Balance of payments, which showed a record deficit in 1987?

The Tories proclaimed it a miracle, and so it was - a miraculous and spectacular robbery of £78 billion of oil wealth from Scotland, a vast sum from a resource which gave them additional revenue and simultaneously covered up the growing Crisis in the Balance of trade created by the continuing destruction of the manufacturing base.

When will the Secretary of State recognise that the best way to tackle the Crisis in the Balance of payments - it is a crisis because the deficit is very close to an all-time high - lies not with a string of different organisations having a finger in the pie, including all the regional development agencies throughout the country, UKTI and other bodies, but in having a single export promotion agency led by people with real experience from industry?

There is of course a Crisis in the Balance between supply and demand for housing in the UK, and no more starkly are the effects of this imbalance felt than in social housing.