Economic Crisis

Including: Major Economic Crisis, Their Economic Crisis, Another Economic Crisis, This Current Economic Crisis, Impending Grave Economic Crisis, This Economic Crisis, Our Current Economic Crisis, Crisis in Economics, Urgent Economic Crisis, Another Major Economic Crisis, Terrible Economic Crisis, Impending Economic Crisis, Ongoing Economic Crisis, Difficult the Economic Crisis, Dire Economic Crisis, Difficult Economic Crisis, This Immediate Economic Crisis, Massive Economic Crisis, Threatening Economic Crisis, Current Economic Crisis, Grave Economic Crisis, Present Grave Economic Crisis, This Serious Economic Crisis, Biggest Economic Crisis, Our Present Economic Crisis, Serious Economic Crisis, Worst Economic Crisis, This Grave Economic Crisis, Immediate Economic Crisis, Great the Economic Crisis, This Difficult Economic Crisis, Our Serious Economic Crisis, Real Economic Crisis, This Present Economic Crisis, Similar Economic Crisis, Our Recent Massive Economic Crisis, Our Economic Crisis, Great Economic Crisis, Any Economic Crisis, This Great Economic Crisis, Fundamental Economic Crisis, Disastrous Economic Crisis, Acute Economic Crisis, Our Acute Economic Crisis, Present Economic Crisis, Recent Economic Crisis

2,283 mentions.

1883 - 2016

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1883 to 1886

four mentions

over three years

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All the evidence showed that the unrest which preceded Arabi's movement was caused, not by political or military affairs, but by something like an Economic Crisis.

They had been warned by the Royal Commissioners that a period of an Economic Crisis had arrived, and in the judgment of the Commission the time was favourable for legislation.

Side by side with that revolution Ireland, as an agricultural country, had been passing through an Economic Crisis.

The question of the maintenance of the Constitution in Ireland, and the right of the Irish people to live in their homes, and to be relieved of the effects of an Economic Crisis over which they have no control, will be tested and tried by the Government.

1896 to 1906

three mentions

over 10 years

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The growth of 459 pauperism and just discontent were quickened, and the action of Her Majesty's Government itself, in many ways, proved that it was conscious that a Grave Economic Crisis existed in Ireland.

He says—"When you come to a full and peaceful possession of the country you will find yourselves face to face with an Economic Crisis".

The Economic Crisis was over.

1908

one mention

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If there was no limit of the description of the Amendment put in they would have to argue as to when a Grave Economic Crisis had arisen.

1920

four mentions

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When you demonetise the old complete silver 943 currency and begin to replace it by one which is not all silver, there is is a Terrible Economic Crisis at once.

He appealed to me, on the ground of historic sentiment and morality and the fear of an Economic Crisis arising if this Bill were carried into law, to withdraw it and to adopt some other method.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: But if my hon. Friend's line of reasoning is right, the Economic Crisis will follow also as a temporary measure, and the disturbance of prices also will follow, as well as the rather doubtful morality vis à vis the West African native—all these direful consequences which my hon. Friend suggests will follow the reduction in the fineness of silver coins will follow on the substitution of paper for a silver coinage.

There is another cause which is always of the very highest importance in any kind of Economic Crisis similar to the one through which the world is passing.

1925 to 1927

three mentions

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Progressive depression in the coal trade led, at the end of July, to a Grave Economic Crisis, which threatened to result in a disastrous industrial conflict.

It seems clear that had we not returned to the gold standard at that time and in that way, and had we postponed it for a little, keeping in view our exports, the coal industry would never have been plunged into the Economic Crisis which eventuated in the industrial trouble.

A report presented by one of the Departments of the Board of Trade dealing with the position in France gave a very good account of the monetary problem there, and it pointed out: "If financial restoration is urgent and in dispensable, it will be vain to deny that it will evoke a Grave Economic Crisis, temporary of course, and one that all countries have experienced in carrying out their currency reconstruction".

1930

four mentions

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in the exports by bulk of cotton piece goods is another element which ought to warn the hon. Member that there is an Economic Crisis upon us at the present moment; and if he wanted a final and concluding argument, I should have thought that the fact that the numbers of the unemployed had increased by just about 1,000,000 in one year would prove that we are in fact in the throes of a very grave crisis indeed.

That is the second reason why we say that this Bill, which we are quite ready to discuss on academic lines, is fatal in the present circumstances and in the Present Economic Crisis, from the point of view of the very problems it is designed to solve.

I appeal to hon. Members to think of these things in relation to the Economic Crisis that this country has to face.

It is at this moment, in the middle of an Economic Crisis such as we are facing, that the Government lightheartedly introduce a Bill of this kind, opening up vistas of unlimited expenditure in the more distant future and costing in the immediate future very much more than they estimate, utterly out of touch with the needs of the moment, reducing the standard of living of the working classes, reducing the employing power of the employing classes and calculated, not to diminish, but, positively, greatly to increase unemployment.

1931

13 mentions

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I quite agree with hon. Members that we are facing a Great Economic Crisis, but who is responsible for it?

Mr. DALTON: My right hon. Friend is informed that the grounds on which the Hungarian Government have hitherto refused to ratify the agreement of the 31st of October are two-fold: first, an objection to the increased payments provided for in the agreement, secondly, the existing Economic Crisis which makes it impossible to forecast the financial position of Hungary.

When it comes to the time which has been chosen for the introduction of this Measure, I wonder whether a time of Grave Economic Crisis, which can only be surmounted by the best brains and the best business capacity of this country is really suitable for the ill-timed jest of disfranchising both business and learning.

In my view, the humiliating position of the Government to-day—and it has been humiliating enough—arises primarily from their failure to face the Economic Crisis with which this country is confronted.

I do not wish to dwell on the Serious Economic Crisis which is confronting Australia.

In the Present Economic Crisis we ought to practise the greatest economy possible, and for that reason these appeals ought to be carried out in an economic manner.

The country is going through an Economic Crisis.

We are passing through an Economic Crisis perhaps unparalleled in our history but certainly unparalleled for a century.

To-day, in the midst of an Economic Crisis, instead of considering what we can do to give work to the work-less, to restore confidence now sadly lacking, to give hope where hope is 90 almost dead, we are monkeying with the electoral machinery to save a half-dead party.

In the position in which we are to-day, confronted with a Great Economic Crisis, it would be far better to have a Government with a majority that could govern rather than a continuance of the present situation.

That illustrates the point that the mal-distribution of gold has played no insignificant part in producing the Present Economic Crisis.

Mr. WISE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the problem of the Economic Crisis was referred to the 290 Economic Council to be discussed by members of that Council?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: His Majesty's Government have recently received an assurance from the Suez Canal Company that all possible economies consistent with efficiency have been carried out both as regards personnel and as regards works on the canal, while the diminution of traffic owing to the Economic Crisis and the recent reduction of dues will entail a considerable decrease in the amount of directors' fees.

1932

nine mentions

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Therefore, the tariff countries and the non-tariff countries had their periods of industrial progress and prosperity before the Acute Economic Crisis took place in this country and in the world.

I do not know whether it is always realised in this House how great is the Economic Crisis through which India has been passing.

I should very much like to ask the Under-Secretary of State whether he can tell the House how they are getting on with finding occupations for these officers when they leave the Service, and whether the Economic Crisis which has hit us so badly to-day has in any way affected our getting suitable numbers and types of applicants for these short service commissions.

Those figures make one think seriously whether, so long as we retain a fighting air force, it is worth while to pursue the cheeseparing policy we have been forced to adopt owing to the Economic Crisis, or whether we ought not to start a campaign throughout the country to proclaim that expenditure on the Services is not a wanton expenditure, is not, profligate expenditure or expenditure that is tempting people to fight each other, but is the best form of national insurance until the world ideal—to which.

He should make it clear that this is merely a temporary expedient to meet an Economic Crisis, and that as soon as things have come right, or even earlier, the teachers will be one of the first sections of society to be considered and to be generously treated by the State.

When we take the young persons in the country as a whole, the burden on one firm or one industry may not be great, but, when we are in an Economic Crisis such as we are still experiencing, I think that industry might justifiably say that this is not the moment in which to be making things more difficult even though it might not be to a very large extent.

Experts all over the world are putting down the prolongation of the Economic Crisis to the question of money.

Future receipts will be influenced by such factors as the diminution of traffic owing to the Economic Crisis and the recent reduction by about 10 per cent.

With more safeguards for the 57 people employed, I would prefer that to the kind of recklessness which has prevailed in many industries during a time of Economic Crisis.

1933

nine mentions

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It was very soon followed by the Economic Crisis of 1931.

I can only repeat, as we have so often said in this House, that one day they will be awakened from their slumbers by the working class of the country and of the world, by financial catastrophe, by Economic Crisis, by the poverty and despair of the common people.

What I felt about his speech to-day, though not perhaps to as great a degree as his previous speech, was that the Government qua Government—and a National Government at that—has no more plan at its disposal to-night for dealing with This Economic Crisis represented by grave unemployment than it had when it came into office.

Where else have they made a single attempt to develop a constructive plan for dealing with the vast problem represented by the Economic Crisis?

1771 Europe is to-day dealing with a Great Economic Crisis, but the desire of Europe to see that its anchorage in the land is not carried away is one of the things which Europe will insist upon in the forthcoming conference.

One fourth of that amount or one half of the £360,000,000 used as a loan for capital development, capital expenditure, say, on housing construction in this country would do more good to this country and would help us more quickly to get out of the Economic Crisis than all the exchange equalisation funds in the world.

All this development has created its own crop of problems, and the difficulty of these has been enhanced by the Present Economic Crisis.

Would it be too much to ask that, in This Economic Crisis, the Empire should maintain a united front?

The other was a scheme started in the middle of a Great Economic Crisis, on a large scale.

1934

three mentions

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I think that the Bill to which he is referring must be one introduced to relieve existing settlers in Canada of some of the burden of debt that hangs upon them during This Grave Economic Crisis.

As regards the other matter, I do not want to repeat what I said before, and so I leave it that I do not think it is wise, at this moment of time, to hypothecate £9,500,000 of the taxpayers' money for the purpose of this policy when we are still going through an Economic Crisis.

That scheme was submitted to the Government before the Economic Crisis, and I believe the Unemployment Grants Committee 2040 were prepared to make a grant.

1935

four mentions

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The latter postulates that the amount of over 13 crores at present attributable to the surcharges,"— those are surcharges on taxation put on in the Economic Crisis of 1931, amounting to nearly £10 millions— "should, owing to economic recovery, be produced by taxes at unsurcharged rates.

The policy of the Government which has maintained cheap food supplies of first class quality has played its part in seeing this country through the Economic Crisis.

When the onset of the Economic Crisis became acute in 1930 every Government was driven to consider the malady within its own boundaries, without regard to the state of things amongst its neighbours, although the malady afflicted them in almost precisely the same way.

Can we not well imagine, in the Economic Crisis prevailing, the Chancellor of the Exchequer of some other nation announcing in his constituent assembly "Unfortunately this year we have had to raise taxes, and we shall have to raise them still more, because our expeditionary force against country X has been an additional strain on our resources".

1936

five mentions

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Then with regard to the Territorial camps - and the, camp is to the Territorial the chief object of his existence as a Territorial - it will be remembered that in 1931 a decision was taken in the height of the Economic Crisis to abolish the camps for 1932.

There are still about two crore remaining of the original 10-crore programme started in 1928, and the main reasons for the total sum of money not having been spent are partly the Economic Crisis and partly the face that the Army in India is waiting, I think very wisely to find the latest forms of equipment and the latest experience of the West to add to their own equipment, and they have a certain sum of money still to spend on this important programme.

That went on year after year and it was not until the Economic Crisis, which really swept the Nazis into power, that we began when it was too late to take steps which, earlier, might have stabilised a great political system and created a great country out of the Weimar Republic.

The Chancellor has congratulated himself, and, judged by his standard, he was entitled to congratulate himself, on the different position financially as between 1932 and 1936, although I have the feeling, and I said so at the time, that the Economic Crisis of 1931 was largely an imaginary crisis created by the right hon.Gentleman and his friends when they sat on these benches.

We know that the United States is a land of individualism, and we also know that, as the Minister of Health pointed out, there was no unemployment benefit in America when the Economic Crisis arose.

1937

six mentions

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There is another factor which will influence unassisted migration in the next few years, and that is the dreary and sorrowful experience of so many emigrants from this country during the Economic Crisis which followed the peak years of emigration.

and whether His Majesty's Government propose to take any specific action to prevent a recurrence of conditions which might be considered likely to produce an Economic Crisis similar to that of 1931?

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been drawn to the recent budget proposals of the Swedish Finance Minister under which the Swedish Government are taking definite steps to counteract the normal succession of events associated with a trade cycle; and whether His Majesty's Government propose to take any specific action to prevent a recurrence of conditions which might be considered likely to produce an Economic Crisis similar to that of 1931?

We shall have an Economic Crisis and the men who have been attracted to these places will be left there stranded.

I think an examination of the facts will underline my view that this House and the country at a moment of Economic Crisis were stampeded into doing something which, on closer and calmer investigation, will not hold water.

The troubles at Invergordon were due to the Economic Crisis, which at least His Majesty's present advisers did nothing to bring on.

1938

six mentions

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In fact, it is true to say that we are at the moment passing through a rather severe, although we hope a purely temporary, Economic Crisis.

They have adopted a completely passive attitude in the face of This Economic Crisis.

Just recently, on the top of the fact that our trade has slumped tremendously from year to year, the Economic Crisis on the west coast of Africa has robbed us of what had become one of our best markets.

The balance of trade is being very carefully watched by my right hon. Friend, who does not intend to be caught napping or to be caught on the eve of an Economic Crisis, but there is no real danger.

Herr Hitler came to power in Germany largely because of the 7,000,000 unemployed and of the fearful sufferings of the people during the Economic Crisis.

If the workers here were surging in the streets, if there were an Economic Crisis and it threw up a real Socialist opposition of almost equal numbers to the Government of this country, the ruling classes would say "Democracy is ended".

1939

four mentions

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Since 1931 the refugee has been the first victim of the Economic Crisis.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to the International Labour Office, but he ought to quote the result of their investigation into the Economic Crisis of 1929–31.

We shall certainly be face to face, when the fighting is over and the production of munitions comes to a sudden stop, with the most Serious Economic Crisis that the modern world has ever known.

After all, the Weimar Constitution was functioning quite satisfactorily until it was betrayed in 1933 and until the Great Economic Crisis made conditions impossible for it to carry on.

1940 to 1943

four mentions

over three years

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It is true that during that period of growing Economic Crisis we built up a debt, but I am not ashamed of that.

It began to grow very rapidly in the late Thirties when the pressure of the Economic Crisis began to pass, and in 1939 the expenditure had risen to £19,000,000.

He went on to say:It would seem, therefore, that if new light is to be thrown on this grave and clamant problem - he was talking about the Economic Crisis at that time - it must, in the first instance, receive examination through a non-political body free altogether from party exigencies and composed of persons possessing special qualifications in economic matters.

That was coincident with an Economic Crisis.

1945

three mentions

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The answer I would give to the hon. Gentleman is that at this moment of Economic Crisis nationalisation is not the method to use.

These elections were followed by threats of disturbances and strikes promoted by the unsuccessful Social Democrat and Communist Parties, which, if implemented, could only worsen the Present Economic Crisis.

During the years between the Economic Crisis of 1931 and the approaching menace of war, I tried to put forward the view that it was wrong to apply a simple and single solution to a complex and diverse problem.

1946

six mentions

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If, for example, there was an Economic Crisis that depressed the£ catastrophically, it would be quite senseless to expect farmers to receive a price for their products that bore a sterling value not in relation to their costs of production.

It is the Acute Economic Crisis and the shortage of food which have aggravated these inter-racial feelings.

The other people thought that we were approaching an Economic Crisis and that it was right to conserve their capital and liquid assets.

There is the rise in prices during the scarcity and that will be followed by a fall in prices which may be the prelude to Another Economic Crisis such as happened after the last war.

They see that an Economic Crisis of the gravest character is facing the American people.

I have here a copy of a document called, "The Economic Crisis, Foretold by the 'Daily Mail', 1921–1931", and I find that just as after the first world war, when Members opposite were in power, we had the same type of banner headlines in the Press as we are getting today.

1947

124 mentions

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The House will appreciate that an annual census of production is not an instrument of much value at a time of Economic Crisis.

I do not quite see the relevance of the point which the hon. Member was making, but he quoted me as having said that when the American loan had been spent, we should have to work much harder and produce a great deal more - which is the chief object of this Bill - or we should face a Terrible Economic Crisis.

If we have the general provision that all relevant factors are to be taken into consideration we shall, I fear, get a certain hostility to agricultural wages and prices going up when other wages and prices may, owing to the Economic Crisis, be falling down.

Does the Minister think that in Our Present Economic Crisis the country can afford a 35-hour week?

I would say to the new Minister, and to the Parliamentary Secretary, who, I agree with another hon. Member, has had a heavy burden, that they should press ahead and retain this priority in other fields, particularly in the technical, industrial field, where I think they will have the sympathy of industry, and the sympathy of those who are grappling with the Economic Crisis.

He will remember that just a fortnight ago, before the Ministry landed us in the Present Economic Crisis, I asked the Minister whether he proposed to continue to insert the advertisements in the newspapers that "We are on the highway to prosperity".

What I would point out, however, is that in so far as it does prove to be an investment the dividend will not come in, if at all, for a considerable number of years, whereas the Economic Crisis that this country is facing with regard to external expenditure is immediate and likely to face us even this year.

It is fatuous to produce a White Paper dealing with Our Economic Crisis, if it does not tell us how long and how far the policy of increasing the ever rocketing cost-of-living subsidy is to be taken.

I think we might implement that statement now, and offer to the miners all the necessary inducements - the maximum food and so on - to get us out of This Economic Crisis.

The President of the Board of Trade said yesterday, and he was quite right, that no temporary solution to This Economic Crisis is possible.

I beg to move, in line 2, to leave out from "1947" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:and, while recognising the ever increasing gravity of the Economic Crisis and willing to give its support to any practical measures to meet it, regrets that the full facts of the situation have for so long been withheld from the country; and has no confidence in a Government whose actions hitherto have served only to aggravate the national difficulties and whose proposals for the future are either inadequate or injurious.

I have no doubt that the figures were drawn up at a time when we had not reached the Present Economic Crisis, and I am the first to agree that the R.A.F. uniform, and particularly that of the W.A.A.F.

I warn the Financial Secretary that before this Government is very much older, when the Economic Crisis which is now hastening towards us descends upon this country, one of the first things the Treasury will suggest is that they should suspend this programme for rebuilding the naval barracks.

I will not follow him in his dismal prophecy of a slump, and, indeed, I would be out of Order if I were to refer to the Economic Crisis.

I think there is some similarity of thought—the House looks to Lie Government in these days of Economic Crisis for three things.

In the matter of national defence - and here I am not sure that I am not following the very points the right hon. Gentleman mentioned; I think there is some similarity of thought - the House looks to Lie Government in these days of Economic Crisis for three things.

We are all agreed that our defence Forces should be cut to the minimum required, but to carry the idea beyond the realm of safety and into the realm of danger, because of an Economic Crisis, is quite nonsensical.

The merits of the Bill are, therefore, in my opinion, extremely doubtful, but the Opposition will not stand in the way of any step which the Government consider necessary and likely to assist the nation through the Economic Crisis with which we are faced today.

Surely the hon. Member must realise that it would be an Economic Crisis if we had to cut down our imports and still further reduce our standard of living as it exists today?

It would be a difficult and awkward situation and would call for the utmost effort on the part of all the people in this country, but there is quite a difference between a situation like that and the kind of Economic Crisis which occurred in 1931.

Yet the Government are faced with an Economic Crisis.

It is possible that when 1949 comes the pressure of public opinion, and the pressure of Economic Crisis, may render the idea of compulsory service utterly unthinkable.

I am perfectly certain that a very large incentive would have been given to the people in this range of income, and that would have materially helped us to overcome the Economic Crisis.

The main criticism which I would make - and it does not apply to some of the speeches or to the hon. Gentleman who read through one of the ration cards now distributed in Germany - is the fact that we are holding this Debate largely on Germany at a time when Germany is in a state of Economic Crisis - a state of famine.

It caused the Economic Crisis last winter, but there again, although I believe the crisis was avoidable, it was not within the province of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, except as a Member of the Government.

We have all to work together in the future to get through the Great Economic Crisis with which we are now faced, and which may become greater within the next six or 12 months.

It is brought forward because I honestly believe relief in this direction can have a finer effect in helping to get us through Our Economic Crisis than relief in any other direction.

We, the countries of Europe, as I see it, have to meet an Economic Crisis which will reach its peak in the next 12 months- perhaps in the next six months.

I believeour agricultural workers are also going to be largely responsible for whether or not this country will ride the coming Economic Crisis.

There is not the slightest doubt that we are passing through a Great Economic Crisis.

Therefore, I believe that our subject, far from being an academic subject, is the most practical in the world, and absolutely vital to present discussions on the Economic Crisis.

We cannot face the shame, however Great the Economic Crisis might be, of letting the continuation portion of this Act break down again.

As a background to what I have to say I can refer to what both the Minister and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) have said about the importance, in the Present Economic Crisis, of having at our disposal, in research departments of industry, and in industry generally, the greatest amount of scientific knowledge we can possibly bring to bear.

If the objection were only on personal grounds we might not feel so strongly, although we feel that it should be strongly pressed, but it is on national grounds, against the gloomy background not only of world food shortage but of the need in these islands to look inwards and to make the most of our natural resources that we feel strongly; for this House is bound, in these days of 808 Economic Crisis, to look to the farmer and to the importance of not doing anything that can be avoided to injure the national industry of agriculture.

France is faced with an Economic Crisis at least as grave as our own and at least as pressing.

I put it to the House that since 1929, the year of a Great Economic Crisis, no country in the world, except Germany, has ever recovered from that crisis; no country ever got back to its production or trade in volume or value, apart from Germany, except during the war period.

I hope that it will be realised that so far as engineering is concerned we have a great body of wholesome support for any worthwhile effort, whether it be for war or to bring this country through an Economic Crisis such as we now have before us.

In times of Economic Crisis and difficulty it is essential to have a policy, and not to wait for it until we can get the Government servants to help us to make it.

Therefore, we must have in the operation of this Bill firm measures to deal with the black market, we must have equality of sacrifice, and, by that, we will get that will to work which will pull this country out of the Economic Crisis.

They are facing an Economic Crisis.

The first was the Economic Crisis which arose because of the ecclesiastical and trade policy of the Tudors, which resulted in the troubles that came about after the dissolution of the monasteries and the suppression of the Guilds.

The doubt which we are removing is whether the powers can be used for dealing with This Economic Crisis.

After all, the purposes of this Bill, as expressed in Clause 1, are for the purposes of:promoting the productivity of industry, commerce and agriculture; for fostering and directing exports and reducing imports, or imports of any classes, from all or any countries and for redressing the balance of trade,or, as the hon. and learned Member for Northampton said, to deal with the Economic Crisis.

There is the view that a group of able and ruthless men are seizing the opportunity to impose a totalitarian system of Government in this country, the opportunity being the Present Economic Crisis.

They press me every time I go there to say why it is that only a section of us are asked to give everything in order to save this country in an Economic Crisis.

In the course of his peroration to a long speech last Thursday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer suggested that during the Recess we should ponder, study and explain the Economic Crisis to our constituents.

The Prime Minister has assured us that this Bill was only required in order to enable us to weather the Economic Crisis and that this Clause we are discussing was necessary to make sure that it was legal to enforce the existing Act.

We are passing through not only an Economic Crisis but an industrial revolution, which it would be dangerous to ignore.

The purposes should be the policy of the Government to deal with This Economic Crisis, and I venture to say that the great majority of Members on the Benches opposite are not happy about that policy.

The justification of the whole of this Bill is the Economic Crisis we are facing.

Surely, the Government could have seen This Economic Crisis looming up over a long period.

On the general issue, can we have an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that he will not be panicked by the Economic Crisis into a reduction of the Armed Forces below the safety level?

I appeal to them from this House of Commons to give us all they can in the Present Economic Crisis that this country has to face.

The Economic Crisis has been before the country for a long time, and we were all under the impression that there were some grounds for thinking that it had by-passed the Government.

All of us are anxious at this time not only about the international situation but about our economic affairs at home, and I am convinced that the international deterioration finds adequate reflection in Our Economic Crisis here at home, that there is a link between the two, for Eastern Europe can provide much of what we need, without any dollars having to be paid.

In view of the Economic Crisis, this Session is bound to be a critical one for the people and for the Government.

It was inevitable that we should find in the very forefront of the Gracious Speech some reference to the Economic Crisis, the inexorable aftermath of modern warfare in which there are no victors, and which has caught the whole of Europe in this great crisis which we are now facing.

I do not pretend to do so myself—to understand the extent of an Economic Crisis which we wish to ward off until such time as the economic crisis actually hits us in terms of hunger and unemployment.

All sorts of people are urging that we should over-rapidly demobilise our Armed Forces, and many people are using the Economic Crisis and the un- 370 doubted manpower shortage in order to clear out of Europe because they wish, for quite different reasons, that Europe may be laid at the mercy of the new Communist tyranny.

It is not a bit easy to those untutored in economics - and, after all, the average man does not know very much about economics; I do not pretend to do so myself - to understand the extent of an Economic Crisis which we wish to ward off until such time as the economic crisis actually hits us in terms of hunger and unemployment.

He chose one of his chief Ministers, the Minister of Fuel and Power, following the good Socialist custom of going to the same public school, from his own public school, and if this crisis is resolved it may later be said that the British Economic Crisis was solved on the playing fields of Winchester.

[But humbly regret that the Gracious Speech, while clearly revealing the intention of Your Majesty's Government to continue their partisan policies, gives no assurance of the national leadership, the administrative competence, or the measures necessary to meet the Economic Crisis and so give relief to Your people from their ever increasing hardships.

We shall, as I have said, come through This Economic Crisis, but let us beware of giving up any one of our spiritual rights, because when we lose those, we not only lose them, but we lose the right and the very means of getting them back.

Forty nations are spending, in this time of Economic Crisis, something like £7,000 million per annum on the preparation for war, which is £2,500 millionmore than was being spent in 1938, before that terrible war started.

We shall come through This Economic Crisis.

We are in for a Grave Economic Crisis.

I understand that we are in a Serious Economic Crisis.

I would like to ask whether there is one hon. or right hon. Gentleman present who attaches to the Government of the day the whole responsibility for This Serious Economic Crisis.

As he has been attacked, may I in his defence - he does not really want a defence - quote a short sentence from his article in which he says:In any review of the Present Economic Crisis, the first thing that must be stated is that we are victims of a dreadful catastrophe … The average citizen has tended to regard the breakdown of the experiment in convertibility and the virtual exhaustion of our dollar resources as a matter of comparative indifference.

But I beg the House to remember what, in face of an Economic Crisis, we are up against.

Mr. Blackburn asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether, in view of the vital contribution which scientists, particularly those with University education, can make towards national economic recovery, he will give an assurance that despite the Present Economic Crisis there will be no reduction in the financial assistance and priorities which are being given to the expansion of the capacity of the universities of this country to provide us with more scientific manpower as rapidly as possible.

Mr. Janner asked the President of the Board of Trade whether any modifications are to be made in the plans for the 1951 Exhibition as a result of the Economic Crisis.

I beg to move, at the end of the Question, to add:But humbly regret that the Gracious Speech, while clearly revealing the intention of Your Majesty's Government to continue their partisan policies, gives no assurance of the national leadership, the administrative competence, or the measures necessary to meet the Economic Crisis and so give relief to Your people from their ever increasing hardships.

This is a formidable issue to fling out at this time of Economic Crisis - at this time when, in full peace, despotic wartime powers are ruling - and to be flung out, not as a result of grave historic and prolonged constitutional controversies, but as a cheap, paltry, disreputable deal between jarring nonentities in a divided Administration.

The Opposition know this - that the cause of the Economic Crisis today is not the Labour Party or the Labour Government.

I am referring to the international crisis which is already developing in the world before our eyes, and which may easily overtake the present Economic Crisis.

Finally, I would ask the House to look a little beyond and see whether I am not right in saying that behind This Immediate Economic Crisis there is a very much greater one ahead.

I believe that the case made out by hon. Members opposite is based on the fallacy that there is really big common ground of agreement which might be reached between all parties of this House on how This Economic Crisis could be dealt with.

Which Amendment was, at the end of the Question, to add: "But humbly regret that the Gracious Speech, while clearly revealing the intention of our Majesty's Government to continue their partisan policies, gives no assurance of the national leadership, the administrative competence, or the measures necessary to meet the Economic Crisis and so give relief to Your people from their ever increasing hardships".

The British Gliding Association and the Royal Aero Club have decided that the International Gliding Competition could not be satisfactorily conducted in this country next year owing to the Economic Crisis and the consequent restrictions.

We heard statements about the Economic Crisis made yesterday and today by Members opposite.

Sometimes it is a Grave Economic Crisis, sometimes it is a manufactured thing, and sometimes it is supposed to have been created almost deliberately by the Prime Minister and his colleagues.

I regret it, because I myself believe that the people of this country, exhausted though they are by six years of war, discouraged by rationing and by the prospect of long austerity, if they are united, can show the world that they are still capable of doing what they did during the war, and of showing that endurance and that courage that alone will bring us through the Economic Crisis.

The Government have no leader, they have no team, and they have no plan, and we cannot in war win battles without these three, and, in peace, we cannot get out of an Economic Crisis and set our feet on the way to prosperity without them.

I am sure the Government will lose far more from the point of view of our recovery from the Economic Crisis by insisting on the abolition of the bask petrol ration than can be possibly gained by saving dollars.

That is the answer, and if that answer is not good enough, let us see what the Government themselves said when we were on the brink of This Economic Crisis.

This regulation is akin to the line which the Nazis took in Germany and the Fascists in Italy when they were faced with an Economic Crisis.

We feel that it is necessary in view of the Economic Crisis with which the country is faced and that we must re-deploy our labour force to see that it is used on necessary things.

Those who have argued that when Parliament has given the Government sweeping powers to deal with the Economic Crisis they should not have used these powers to introduce this order in this way, but should have waited and introduced the power in some other way, are disregarding the fact that in dealing with this situation speed is of the essence.

We are faced with an Economic Crisis, and the general world dollar shortage, which reflects the disparity of production between the new and old world, strikingly emphasises the importance of the resources of the Colonial Empire.

Economic Crisis, causes of, 199–205, 210.

they say we ought to have dealt first with the composition of the Upper Chamber; and they say that we are distracting attention from the Economic Crisis, and that this is not the time or place to deal with the House of Lords.

If we had proposed to abolish the House of Lords, I could have understood the complaint that we were embarking on big constitutional changes in the middle of an Economic Crisis.

We have just listened to a learned and lengthy essay in constitutional history and practice, and' I cannot help thinking that if anyone had come into this Chamber, like Rip Van Winkle or some other person returning from a long absence, he would have had the greatest difficulty in realising that this country was in the middle of the greatest, most Serious Economic Crisis it had ever faced in its history.

They say that we have no mandate for it; they say we ought to have dealt first with the composition of the Upper Chamber; and they say that we are distracting attention from the Economic Crisis, and that this is not the time or place to deal with the House of Lords.

I do not believe that this Measure is going to divert anybody's attention from the Economic Crisis.

Of course, it may well be concerned, after so many of its economists have said what they did a few months ago about the prospects of an Economic Crisis.

Here is the gravest Economic Crisis we have ever known.

They seem to be transferring their affection - particularly the Lord President - with almost indecent speed from the Economic Crisis, which is now the business of the Minister for Economic Affairs, to this topic which they find more alluring, on the principle, I suppose, of the popular song:If I'm not near the girl I love, I love the girl I'm near.

But if they feel that work of that kind would distract thepublic mind at the present time - as well it might - from the Economic Crisis, I say that the same applies to this Bill which they are bringing before the House.

In this interim Budget, in spite of the Economic Crisis my right hon. Friend has not placed on the shoulders of the working people more burdens than they can bear.

In the Difficult Economic Crisis through which this country is passing, the Chancellor deserves our highest commendation for keeping in check the wolves who, had they been responsible for the Government today, would have devoured the ordinary men and women.

This is not the occasion to discuss the Government's over-all economic policy, or lack of it; but I claim that the Present Economic Crisis could have been averted by a vigorous implementation at home and abroad of Labour's 1945 programme.

Is it remarkable, when statements of that sort come from the Treasury Bench, that an American newspaper correspondent wired his paper in New York that only the other day he had been to Grimethorpe during the dispute there and a miner said to him, "If this is an Economic Crisis, long may it continue".

It is true that the point has been made that the Orders made under this regulation by the right hon. Gentleman are given a first ending period at the end of 1948, but no one in this Committee who has listened to the speeches, from the Government Benches alone, on the duration of the Economic Crisis, can expect for a moment, or would be so vain and foolish as to hope, that the end of 1948 could be the final period in regard to the continuance of the orders; and certainly the same applies to the power to make them under the regulation.

Mr. Challen asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he will issue the White Paper giving detailed information on the cuts which are to be made in capital expenditure in connection with the Economic Crisis.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he will issue the White Paper giving detailed information on the cuts which are to be made in capital expenditure in connection with the Economic Crisis.

a week plus overtime, with a clerical staff of five; what is the total weekly wages bill for this extra staff plus the cost of stationery and office; why it is proposed to appoint an assistant ratefixer; and, in view of the Economic Crisis, how he justifies these added overhead charges.

asked the Prime Minister if he will keep the House informed of the talks he and his Cabinet colleagues are having with the Trade Union Congress and Employers' Federation representatives on the steps to be taken to overcome the Economic Crisis, and give an assurance that data disclosed at these talks will be made available to the House; and that any agreements which result will be communicated to the House as soon as possible.

I conclude by saying that the Budget and this Bill, in view of the deepening Economic Crisis, are merely a step in the dark.

I criticise the Profits Tax not so much because of its incidence, but because at this crucial period in Our Economic Crisis, although the Budget and the Finance Bill bear all the hallmarks of having been hastily prepared and produced, something in the nature of an economic and imaginative tax should have been prepared by the Government.

If hon. Members think I am using exaggerated language I would refer them to a recent pamphlet issued by the London Chamber of Commerce, entitled, "A Report on the Economic Crisis".

The House will remember that it was in August of this year - 6th August, I believe - that the Prime Minister announced that the time had come to restrict catering establishments during theperiod of the Economic Crisis.

We can also be proud of one other thing: it is a tribute to this House, as an institution, that, in the midst of world disturbances, the Economic Crisis at home, and fierce party controversy in most fields of political endeavour, we can calmly and reasonably put aside all prejudices to discuss a big Measure of prison reform.

The large sum of money which is literally going West every month unless something is done by my right hon. Friend to stop it, seems a disgraceful thing in this time of Economic Crisis.

Although I believe that the amount of power which is used is an all-electric set is very small, it is only by small mercies that we can hope to get through Our Present Economic Crisis.

H.M.S. "Triumph" is serving on the Mediterranean Station and the issue of the drawing was the sequel to a talk given to the ship's company on the results of the Economic Crisis, and on the consequential necessity for strict economy in the use of rationed foodstuffs.

All of us will wish success to the committee which is being set up, and we trust that, as a result of their efforts, anything which can be done in this line to assist us in Our Economic Crisis will be done.

It would be out of Order, and I would not attempt it, to argue whether nationalising iron and steel is a good thing or not and I will try to keep scrupulously away from any such argument, but I am entitled to say that it is admittedly not a Measure necessary to deal with the Present Economic Crisis.

The Seychelles Government have recently offered His Majesty's Government an interest free loan of £15,000 as a measure of assistance and as a token of solidarity with this country in the Present Grave Economic Crisis.

In the middle of an Economic Crisis of quite unparalleled gravity, so we are told, the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) today proposes a Measure of fundamental and far-reaching constitutional importance to be agreed between the two parties, no doubt by means of a series of constitutional conferences on the lines proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the senior Burgess for Oxford University (Sir A. Salter) in his speech on the Committee stage.

I believe there is a good commonsense opinion in this country that whatever the goodwill of the Royal Family is, we are faced with a time of Economic Crisis and austerity, that we should start at the top, and that we are not justified in increasing expenditure at this time.

I have been struck during this Debate by the fact that hon. Members on the other side of the House seem to have realised for the first time the true, grim nature of Our Economic Crisis.

There is no need for all this gloom and despondency, because, after all, the success of this Government, and our plan, to conquer This Economic Crisis will, in the end, depend upon the individual workman - whether he has his tail up or whether he has it down.

1948

46 mentions

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I say - and I have taken the trouble to get the opinion of my constituents on this matter - that this is not a Bill which should be brought forward in a time of austerity; that the £15,000 which is allowed to Her Royal Highness is sufficient for the time being, as long as we have an Economic Crisis, and that when we come out of the economic crisis it will be time to consider any increases.

Owing to the Economic Crisis no more factories are to be commenced.

What is in Order is the Amendment, which declares that this expenditure is extravagant and unjustifiable at the present moment of Economic Crisis.

If we do not get these buildings, and if we have the 8,000 emergency teachers training in the emergency training colleges in 1948, I ask the Minister are we once again going to have redundancy in the teaching profession, because the buildings are not put there owing to our having sacrificed once again this issue of education on the rocks of a so-called Economic Crisis?

We cannot allow the future of the young children of this country to be shipwrecked once again on the rocks of Economic Crisis, or fear of war, or whatever it is that is being talked about.

We are, in fact, up against the worst Economic Crisis in our long history.

We all know that the Bill has been ticking around Whitehall for over 12 months, long before the Economic Crisis broke upon the country; and, as is not unusual in Government Departments, no attempt has been made to bring the Bill up to date.

We are not entitled at present to demand from the depleted women power of this country the additions to the Women's Services that are suggested and outlined in this Bill, and, by limiting the expenditure and the numbers that can be enrolled under this Bill, we will be doing a really national service in the Present Economic Crisis.

the time to tackle the job of reductions was 2172 last August when the Government hinted that there would probably be an Economic Crisis.

Not now; the time to tackle the job of reductions waslast August when the Government hinted that there would probably be an Economic Crisis.

As I am dealing with the strength of the Armed Forces may I say here that I notice that the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) has put clown on the Order Paper an Amendment, to leave out from "House" to the end, and to add:deeply concerned at the Serious Economic Crisis facing this country, and the need to utilise the Nation's manpower in useful production, rejects the White Paper (Command Paper No.

May I ask you whether the Amendment standing in my name and the name of the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Piratin), namely - leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add:deeply concerned at the Serious Economic Crisis facing this country, and the need to utilise the Nation's manpower in useful production, rejects the White Paper (Command Paper No.

But I am a little disturbed by what I read in the White Paper about the effect of the Economic Crisis - as I suppose: it must be called - on what my right hon. Friend called the "highest priority".

The Opposition have chosen this early opportunity of raising the general subject of trade, because in these times of Economic Crisis it is clearly a subject of vital importance.

Those are some of the steps which take us some of the way towards solving the Economic Crisis.

It is a good business investment today, even though we are faced with an Economic Crisis.

At a time of Grave Economic Crisis, when, as we were told last night, our dollar reserves are at the point of exhaustion, how does this sum compare with the sum that is being spent on civil aviation?

I maintain that these Estimates do not reflect the attitude we should be adopting towards modern warfare, that we cannot afford this money at a time of Economic Crisis, that we are preparing obsolete weapons, that we are throwing away the national money, and that the only real security and defence for this nation in a time of atomic warfare is a fundamental change in our whole international policy.

For instance, we are told that because of the Economic Crisis the uniform cannot be smartened.

If the Government would do that, they could centre attention on the possibility of solving the Economic Crisis which can never be solved through dependence on America and the big dollar boys who run it.

These are large and significant figures, and before this House can feel really satisfied that in This Economic Crisis we can afford that amount of manpower in the Army, we should have a good deal more information than we have already been given.

I protest against being called upon to vote a sum of £194,396,000 at a time of Economic Crisis.

We are not using our labour to the best national advantage, and this aggravates and intensifies the Economic Crisis, and makes it far more difficult to overcome it.

That is the root of our problem and until we put this right we cannot hope to overcome the Present Economic Crisis.

If we are to persuade, or try to persuade, people in an industrial area like Liverpool that there is an Economic Crisis, we have to give them some account of the 20 million whom the other 25 million are working to maintain.

No really effective steps could be taken to deal with the Economic Crisis because any attempt to deal with fundamentals brought opposition from the Liberals.

I wonder how many of them and of the wage earners even now are saying to themselves, "If this is an Economic Crisis, may it continue for ever".

Moreover, the steps necessary to introduce and maintain this iron discipline - the true Socialist planned State - could not be taken rapidly enough to deal with the Present Economic Crisis without so violent a revolution in our whole way of life as to provoke counter-revolution and civil war.

I do not believe that in their hearts even the most sincere and the most devoted adherents of the Socialist or Collectivist faith believe that the mere application of more and better Socialism, hard instead of soft, red instead of pink, could solve Our Present Economic Crisis.

We know too of the Economic Crisis and of the inflation which threaten that small country, despite the generous United States aid which has been offered, and is still being offered.

If that is so, why should we wait until we are faced with the Biggest Economic Crisis this country has ever known, before introducing such a Bill, and then expect people to take us seriously?

Is the Minister aware that, up to even quite recently, the Lord President of the Council was not aware that there was an Economic Crisis?

I think it is a matter for regret that at this late stage in Our Economic Crisis, the Socialist Party have selected for nationalisation an industry which is working well, where the workers are contented, and which is efficient.

At the present time, when the economic condition of this country is so serious that we need to organise the whole of our available manpower for productive and useful purposes, the Armed Forces are swollen out of all proportion, compared with their usefulness in overcoming the Economic Crisis which confronts this country.

At a time of Economic Crisis and of supreme need, when we should have better houses and more goods for the people, when we need more labour employed on the land, we should not dissipate our energies in mobilising our men and women for the purely destructive purposes of what is called "the art of war".

Last year, after all, all that we were frightened of, all that we were seeking to safeguard ourselves against, was an Economic Crisis, a crisis which I think everybody in the House, except perhaps some Members of the Front Bench opposite, knew was bound to break on the country before we reassembled in the ordinary way, a crisis which we knew would have to be met by new and severe burdens, burdens which, I am afraid not in the proper democratic spirit, we thought should be imposed by Debate in this House and not by decree from Downing Street.

The House has been told that the cause of the Economic Crisis today is American capitalism and that the object of Marshall Aid is to keep up the bourgeoisie and keep down the working classes in slavery.

Last year, we were asked to unite because of the Economic Crisis; this year, because of the international situation.

The Amendment then put down by the Opposition said that the Government had failed to show adequate leadership or administrative competence, had revealed no plans for dealing with the Economic Crisis and, as a result, was to be condemned.

He knows quite well that the country has been facing an Economic Crisis which has been arising for years past.

In spite of all these difficulties, in spite of the Economic Crisis which burst upon the Western world last year with the destructive force of a typhoon, we are moving ahead.

Secondly, it was the first stage in the claim for a 42-hour week which, in the Present Economic Crisis, was deferred.

I do so because it seems to me that even a small increase in taxation at present, having regard to the very Serious Economic Crisis which the country is facing, and will increasingly have to face, may have a disastrous effect on the living standards of our people.

If it is a dangerous thing, at a moment of Economic Crisis, to withdraw a generation of young people from industry and keep them out of it for 12 months, then it must be even more mischievous to keep them out of industry for 18 months.

What the Government have said is that, if it is right in times of Economic Crisis that the Government should exercise control over the national resources, national wealth, and national raw materials, it is also right that they should have the power to deploy the national labour force to the best advantage of the community.

I am referring to the Economic Crisis of 1947, which is largely forgotten history today—we have been through such difficult times since then.

1949

53 mentions

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We agree in principle that if a woman does the same job as a man she should be paid the same amount, but please do not embarrass us, please realise that there is an Economic Crisis and do not make any demands this year, next year or in the years after".

It is a question of the economic organisation of the whole country, and to produce a large number of effectives standing under arms now merely heightens the international tension when we should do our best to lessen it and, if adopted by my right hon. Friend, would lead to a Grave Economic Crisis here.

The tragedy of doing what the Conservatives have always done when they had to face an Economic Crisis is that the people, who will be most seriously affected and who will have to bear the responsibility and the burden of this new gesture on the part of the Chancellor, are these concerned in the 100 out of the 129 trades in this country, where wages are less than 95s.

Then we came to 1947, when there was an Economic Crisis and, because of the foreign exchange position, the Bill was withdrawn.

but wants the country to drift along in an aimless sort of way, particularly on the economic front, so that we can have an Economic Crisis when perhaps the Tories will get back, which is the only way they will get back.

Presumably, the right hon. Gentleman does not want any campaigns on diphtheria immunisation or road safety; but wants the country to drift along in an aimless sort of way, particularly on the economic front, so that we can have an Economic Crisis when perhaps the Tories will get back, which is the only way they will get back.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Mr. Eccles) rightly pointed out, if we try to spend our way out of This Economic Crisis we shall aggravate the crisis of the balance of payments to a point where it will become absolutely unendurable, and which can result only in a drastic cut in our standard of living.

We believe that it is right, when the world and our country in particular are facing an Economic Crisis, that the cost of a standard of living which we believe to be right and proper should be borne by the whole community.

With the country in an Economic Crisis such as we are faced with now, we cannot afford to have Corporations run in the way in which they are being run.

Two years ago, in August, we ran into an Economic Crisis.

Under this Government, in spite of the Economic Crisis we had two years ago, we have been successful so far in largely shielding education from that kind of economy.

As more than one hon. Member has pointed out, we are discussing these matters under the shadow of impending Economic Crisis and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis) said, in a witty and profound speech, if that economic crisis develops as it may develop, whatever views we may have here about the value of education, the people of the country may have some other priority.

We feel that at a time such as the present, when never was there a greater need to exploit to the full the resources which lie in our soil and beneath it, the Chancellor, in giving a stimulus to the exploiting of every source of our home wealth, will be assisting not only his Budget in future years by the increased yield of taxation which will be brought in, but will also be assisting in the solution of the Economic Crisis which was explained to us today.

Is the Minister aware that mad expenditure by his Department is one of the main reasons for the Economic Crisis?

Of the alternatives open to the Government in facing the Economic Crisis, the Chancellor chose the grim expedient of transferring to the shoulders of the citizens the onus of getting Britain out of her financial troubles.

I appreciate that the lockout has resulted in very serious injury to the economy of the country at a moment when no serious person can tolerate a further heightening of Our Economic Crisis.

I confess that I feel more inclined to be highly critical upon the first two propositions, and on the subject of the burden of the Death Duties simply to express my great regret that this section of the Revenue should be called upon to raise a large sum of money in order to help us through Our Present Economic Crisis and difficulties - but I will deal with that matter at the end of my remarks.

Mr. Granville asked the Prime Minister if he will consider inviting an all-party committee to investigate national public expenditure and the public services in order to give a lead towards greater efficiency and economy as an example and a contribution to the national effort in dealing with the Economic Crisis.

The hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton) made obviously a very sincere speech, and he threw some light on why the Socialist Party have involved us in an Economic Crisis.

The Government have given a day for the Economic Crisis as well, namely, next Monday.

I do not believe that the truly desperate nature of the Economic Crisis is apparent to the Government even as late as today.

I do not propose to go over, as we have done in previous Debates, the reasons for the recent troubles in Malaya because, fortunately, they are to a considerable extent passing away, but they have left behind them, on the wrong side of the balance, great financial burdens on Malaya, and they are the cause of the Acute Economic Crisis which has overcome that country.

I would remind the Committee that only on Monday we debated what was called a Serious Economic Crisis, and that that crisis has not yet been solved.

If we are about to face an Economic Crisis or blizzard in this country, as had been referred to by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister, I cannot imagine that the Chancellor of the Exchequer - in an industry which will have the power of life or death over not only our internal production and manufacture of engineering industries, but in the majority of the export trades - will allow the Minister to leave with the Corporation absolute and complete control over the iron and steel industry in the six, nine, or 12 vital months ahead.

In view of the fact that the acting Leader of the House has said that we may have to sit on Monday and Tuesday of next week, it is quite obvious that it will be our duty on this side of the House to move the Adjournment in view of the Impending Economic Crisis.

The first is that we ought not to experiment with a key industry, because we are in a time of Economic Crisis.

My hon. and right hon. Friends and I put down this Vote for discussion today because we thought it would be a good opportunity for the Minister of Agriculture to tell the House and the country to what extent the agricultural industry is making a contribution to the Economic Crisis.

We do not want to see a repetition of that in the Colonies if Economic Crisis should come to the United States of America.

No doubt the Government will say that the Economic Crisis is responsible for slowing down the programme, but my criticism is not that the programme has been slowed down, but that the Government, although it is supposed to stand for a planned economy, has so far failed to fix a definite programme which would enable manufacturers to plan ahead and, as a result, bottlenecks occur and expansion does not take place in the industry as it ought, the price of sets still remains too high and the chance of establishing an export market is gradually dwindling.

There are many on both sides of the political fence who will seek either to destroy the advantages gained over years of patient effort by many other than members of political parties, or else to use the Economic Crisis as a means of forcing a political or economic revolution.

Yet we are faced with a Great Economic Crisis because the sellers' market has now become a buyers' market.

We are repidly drawing to the end of the second day's Debate on This Economic Crisis.

They have produced one Economic Crisis after the other.

and in This Economic Crisis is it not more than ever necessary to conserve salvage and make the fullest use of it?

Does the right hon. Gentleman think that the relaxation of the Government's attitude in this matter has given people the right idea about the necessity to be careful in this regard; and in This Economic Crisis is it not more than ever necessary to conserve salvage and make the fullest use of it?

He has not said anything at all about the Economic Crisis which is upon us.

Devaluation was forced on him for the simple reason that the Economic Crisis is fundamentally a crisis of confidence, and unless devaluation is accompanied by greatly increased production and greatly reduced expenditure it is a completely empty gesture.

because it was a Bill which would go far to expose the country to the danger of single Chamber Government; and lastly—and this, today, is true in every sense of the word—because the Bill could only serve to distract the attention of the country from the Economic Crisis and from the united effort towards recovery which was so vital at that time.

This House can only approve of the very remarkable Amendment moved two years ago by the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords, when he asked the House of Lords to reject the Bill on three grounds, all of which are perfectly valid today: because it was a Bill for which the nation had expressed no desire; because it was a Bill which would go far to expose the country to the danger of single Chamber Government; and lastly - and this, today, is true in every sense of the word - because the Bill could only serve to distract the attention of the country from the Economic Crisis and from the united effort towards recovery which was so vital at that time.

When this Bill was introduced for the second time in September last year, the Economic Crisis had grown in intensity.

He must admit that the Economic Crisis is greater than ever since 1947 and the need for exports is more urgent and greater than ever before.

[That this House regrets that, in view of the necessity in the Present Economic Crisis to give a lead to all sections of the community, no proposal was made in the Prime Minister's statement to the House of 24th October to effect a reduction in the salaries of Ministers and Members of Parliament, respectively, of 25 per cent.

It is also dangerous to continue the illusion in the minds of the workers that, somehow or other, Our Economic Crisis can be overcome by "soaking the rich" still further.

It is being introduced just after the official announcement of Our Economic Crisis, and one wonders whether it is the first of the Government's measures for restoring our financial equilibrium.

We are told that the revenue to be raised is in the nature of £13 million, but, actually, the issues involved in the efforts to overcome the Economic Crisis, which efforts may be seriously endangered by this Bill, are far more important than a matter of £13 million.

Example, however, is better than precept, and if the Government are asking—and how necessary it is that they should ask—everybody to make sacrifices of one kind or another, what a grand lead it would have been had the Government said, "In view of the Economic Crisis we are prepared to delay the procedure so far as this Bill is concerned".

When this Bill was first introduced in November, 1947, it was a time of Economic Crisis, and both the Government and the nation were beginning to realise the seriousness of the situation.

The country is facing a Grave Economic Crisis, and it is the duty of the Government to concentrate their measures and public attention entirely on that crisis and on the steps taken to deal with it.

The country is facing a grave Economic Crisis, and it is the duty of the Government to concentrate their measures and public attention entirely on that crisis and on the steps taken to deal with it.

Would not the Minister agree that the intrusion of political bias into economic affairs is the main reason for the Economic Crisis?

In view of the criticisms made about the causes of Our Economic Crisis, we are tntitled to demand that in any arrangements, in commonly agreed foreign policies and commonly signed treaties and so on, we should not have to bear a disproportionate part of the cost.

Is not folly of this kind responsible for Our Economic Crisis?

In view of this disgraceful revelation, what disciplinary action does the Chancellor propose to take against the Ministries concerned, and when will he realise that under Socialist State control, administration breaks down which brings ruin, and is one of the main reasons for the Economic Crisis?

1950

15 mentions

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we have a world in Economic Crisis with abundance in some countries and starvation in others; we have a world where millions of people are still struggling for their political liberties and where, over one-fifth of its surface, the elementary rights of thought, speech, writing, worship and expression are denied.

We have, today, a world divided and in danger of war; we have a world in Economic Crisis with abundance in some countries and starvation in others; we have a world where millions of people are still struggling for their political liberties and where, over one-fifth of its surface, the elementary rights of thought, speech, writing, worship and expression are denied.

We are definitely on the brink of an Economic Crisis, which will need careful handling, and I would say to the Lord President that, if he is more moderate in his speeches, he will get co-operation from the Opposition, but that he cannot expect us now to take what we had to take in the last Parliament, because we are boxing better and have had some reinforcements.

If we concede that it is asking too much of the Government to abandon nationalisation altogether, they must, in fairness, concede to us that it is equally impossible for us to concede our apposition to a Measure which we consider to be diametrically opposed to the national interest, a Measure which we consider very ill-timed at a moment of Grave Economic Crisis, which is going, at best, to interrupt and dislocate the progress of a key industry and, at worst, to impose that industrial and administrative arthritis that always attends the setting up of one of these public monopolies.

We have been talking in this House about an Economic Crisis for the last 18 months.

As we get out of the Economic Crisis we shall resolutely move forward much more quickly than we can today.

Guest, Keen and Nettlefold's may earn in times of Great Economic Crisis and distress; and as long as we still have people living on the community and rendering no profitable service for that community, while drawing far more than they are giving, to the best of their ability by physical or mental labour.

The reason given was that the Economic Crisis - I think that that was the expression used by the Minister - had necessitated a curtailment of the capital expenditure programme.

I submit that this is a matter of vital importance and that our attitude towards the raising of salaries for work of this kind is something quite apart from the normal view one should take of salary questions at this time of Economic Crisis.

I am sure that he recalls that one of the chief objects of the tariff which has been described to the Committee was that it was a Revenue tariff to help balance the Budget after the Economic Crisis.

My hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Erroll) referredto the cuts in capital expenditure imposed last autumn by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of the Economic Crisis - £25 million on the right hon. Gentleman's Ministry mostly on capital expenditure for electricity.

What happened was that there was an Economic Crisis and his own party tendered their resignation.

A few months ago, it seemed, to most of us, that our economic recovery had reached a stage where we could allay the feeling of insecurity which had been with us since the war, and the possibility of Another Major Economic Crisis, with its renewed austerity, seemed to have receded.

People do not say that we are facing a Dire Economic Crisis, which I believe to be the position - a view to which the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North, subscribed when he said that we could pay neither for our own living nor for our own defence.

We think that is rather more important today in the present financial situation and in the Economic Crisis with which this country is to be faced, than to turn the House of Commons into an annexe of the Tory Central Office for electioneering purposes.

1951

12 mentions

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The right hon. Gentleman has reminded us of the Economic Crisis into which this country was then plunged.

The Israeli Government is now in the middle of a Disastrous Economic Crisis.

in the Economic Crisis at that time would have brought this country to ruin and bankruptcy.

If the pre-war figure of £1 million for sinking a shaft has already gone up, on 1949 prices, to £5 million, what will it be like in 1951 and 1952 if the Economic Crisis develops?

As a result of that position, we shall face an Economic Crisis.

The Economic Crisis of 1931 and the present crisis are two entirely different economic phenomena.

There is no doubt that the main problem with which this Parliament is faced is an extremely serious financial and Economic Crisis.

The late Chancellor of the Exchequer in his speech last week, to which I have already referred, criticised us not so much because we were proposing to denationalise the steel industry - though I have no doubt he is opposed to it - but because we were choosing to introduce this Measure at a moment when the country was in the throes of an Economic Crisis.

We are criticised for bringing in this Measure at a time of Economic Crisis.

We are convinced that if we are to get through This Economic Crisis we need to have the iron and steel industry working at maximum efficiency.

We discovered during these last six and a half years what the Government will discover now, that the major difficulty confronting us and confronting the nation in seeking economic independence is that, for the first time for 30 or 40 years - the first time in my lifetime - the basic industries of this country are meeting the full impact of an Economic Crisis, working at full pressure at full employment, and are proving inadequate for the task.

For these reasons, therefore, despite the general unanimity towards the Bill, I think that it might have been deferred until we have overcome the Economic Crisis which now faces the nation and until the time is more appropriate, when it could have had the blessing of everybody in the House.

1952

40 mentions

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Since neither of the right hon. Gentlemen have tried to do it, let me say what, I think, are the basic factors underlying the Present Economic Crisis.

The Government are not facing up to the real cause of Our Economic Crisis.

Although we had a number of generalisations and "smart Alec" debating points, we received from him and, indeed, from the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he made his statement the other day, not one single contribution to deal with the underlying reasons for the Economic Crisis.

So even if there had been no second World War we should sooner or later, unless there had been a complete reorientation in the economic views of hon. Gentlemen opposite, have been arriving at a very Serious Economic Crisis.

Last week the House debated the Economic Crisis.

Is the Present Economic Crisis being used as an excuse for slowing down the Plan?

A number of hon. Members on both sides of the House have said that the Economic Crisis we are now facing is a 20-year crisis; it goes back deeply into the past and it is going to last for a very long time in the future.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the President of the Board of Trade, are doing it every day because of the Present Economic Crisis.

The Economic Crisis demands that this principle should be strictly applied.

The question is: What re-armament can we afford in 1952 in an entirely new situation created by an Economic Crisis so severe that the French economy and the French political system of democracy are on the point of collapse, and when hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are spending their time lecturing the country that there will be nothing left in the gold reserve by September and that there will be mass unemployment?

In the long term, by getting labour as quickly as possible into the essential export industries, it will help to overcome the Economic Crisis which is the chief threat to full employment.

We are not unmindful of the realities of the financial and Economic Crisis, and we are not unprepared to support all necessary measures that Her Majesty's Government may introduce to deal with it, but we object most vehemently to the misuse of the national emergency for the purpose of introducing measures of this kind,which are vicious examples of class legislation.

That is an important question, but the great question is whether this Budget will produce the solution to Our Economic Crisis.

That is the way in which hon. Gentlemen opposite regard our national finances at a time of Serious Economic Crisis.

Is it the case of the Government, is it the case of the Minister, that they believe in a free medical service in principle, but not in a time of Economic Crisis?

That was the defence put up for these charges, so to solve the Economic Crisis my constituent, with eczema and asthma, pays the "bob" prescription when he goes to the doctor for drugs and medicines, he than pays £3 for his surgical boots necessitated by infantile paralysis, and finally, he pays his 8s.

It has always been considered by every student of this subject that at a time of Economic Crisis the mobility of the labour force depends directly upon the availability of rentable accommodation.

I am aware of the great capital investment which would be necessary, but I am also aware, as is every other hon. Member, of the tremendous importance to the nation in the Economic Crisis, and to our ordinary economic life, of an efficient and cheap transport system.

One thing I am afraid of is that it may fall too rapidly and precipitate an Economic Crisis.

It is the Chancellor's duty to restore the national solvency, and no arguments, sentimental or critical, will dissuade me from doing my duty, whichis to support any measure, however disagreeable, that is likely to help to overcome the Economic Crisis.

Since the last debate on the subject in the House, there has been a growing appreciation throughout the country of the nature and gravity of the Economic Crisis with which we are faced.

It is that we all feel we are speaking in a world where the food situation is getting worse and not only is an Economic Crisis threatening us but the general food resources of the world, for one reason or another, are becoming less.

That does not seem to me right at this time of Economic Crisis.

We can all make our contribution to facing the Economic Crisis by realising that this is no time to play about with subjects which may plunge us into greater difficulties.

We have to face the fact that this country's economy cannot survive and cannot work if every fluctuation and every vagary in the American market causes here an Economic Crisis or an economic boom.

Faced as we are by This Economic Crisis and as we have now been faced for too long, I believe that what- ever Government is in power they must deal with the problem of making agriculture not only efficient, but also of expanding its production well beyond the target already set.

Hence we have now the situation, so well described by Lord Kirkwood, that the cry of wolf has been made so often that the worker today no longer believes there is an Economic Crisis.

We had been told that we were in the middle of an Economic Crisis, but the first Measure to be introduced was this.

The right hon. Gentleman paid tribute to the vitally important part which the oil refining industry is playing in the Present Economic Crisis.

But at the present time we are told that we face the most Serious Economic Crisis that we have ever known, and it is a question whether, at a time when our people are being asked to make sacrifices, they should not be given a lead from the top and whether some cutting down in the expenditure entailed in this Bill might not well be undertaken without in any way impairing the opportunity of the Royal Family to live the usefuland dignified lives that we all want them to live.

But at the present time we are told that we face the most serious Economic Crisis that we have ever known, and it is a question whether, at a time when our people are being asked to make sacrifices, they should not be given a lead from the top and whether some cutting down in the expenditure entailed in this Bill might not well be undertaken without in any way impairing the opportunity of the Royal Family to live the usefuland dignified lives that we all want them to live.

It was described as an Economic Crisis which wouldshake the country and which was affecting not only ourselves but the whole world.

Transport can play a vital part in bringing This Economic Crisis under control.

Only a few days ago in this House he reminded us of the Impending Grave Economic Crisis.

Only a few days ago in this House he reminded us of the impending grave Economic Crisis.

This might happen quickly if there were an Economic Crisis; if not, the development might be long postponed, but, in the end, I think one can say from the start that Southern Rhodesia must go either north or south, and that, if it does not go north, it will go south.

I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman said with regard to a policy for agriculture, but I do not propose to follow that line this morning because I hope that I may be fortunate enough to take part in the economic debate next week, when I hope to put forward ideas similar to those which I gave to the right hon. Gentleman the then Leader of the Opposition at the time of the Economic Crisis in 1947.

But we are fighting the Economic Crisis with our hands tied behind our backs so long as we try to maintain this excessive re-armament programme.

I was especially pleased by the hon. Member's closing remarks to the effect that we are all in This Economic Crisis together.

If this continues we shall be back in the Worst Economic Crisis we have yet experienced.

1953

14 mentions

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The Economic Crisis with which hon. Members on this side of the Committee believe that we are faced will require incentives to overcome, not only incentives to business men, but to workers as well.

This Economic Crisis demands a planned increase in production, in investments and in exports, and an active intervention, both at home and abroad, to create conditions in which exports can flourish.

I have confidence that, under his guidance, this country will get through an odd-numbered year without a Major Economic Crisis, for the first time since the war.

It ought to be noted that we are not today in as strong a position to meet an Economic Crisis as we were in October, 1951.

One point he made is that we were not as strong today to face an Economic Crisis as we were in 1951.

As I understand the proposal, it is that we should take the transport industry of the country - a living, vital link in all our national services - at a time when we are being informed by many Ministers that OUT situation in regard to defence matters, and so on, is rather difficult and that we are facing the possibility of Economic Crisis and are battling for national existence, and dispose of it on precisely the basis that one disposes of a bankrupt firm.

would usher in an Economic Crisis that would reverberate round the world.

The comparison between 1952 and 1953 is difficult to make, because specific figures were not given, but if there was a fall of five between 1950 and 1953, I do not regard that as being so very appalling, considering the Economic Crisis which this Government inherited from right hon. Members opposite and the large-scale reduction in costs which had to be made.

When this Government took office at the end of 1951 the country as a whole was facing a Serious Economic Crisis, and drastic action had to be taken - not action of a popular character, of course - but the result was that in 1952 we experienced a very difficult year because severe import restrictions had to be imposed and resulted in a falling off in vital exports due to the action taken by certain other countries in the sterling area.

In two of three very interesting leading articles last week, "The Times" discussed the economics of re-armament, and argued about some of the figures which the Leader of the House gave this afternoon; namely, that the burden of this so-called re-armament and defence is now so heavy that it is going to land us inevitably into an Economic Crisis.

At that time - although sometimes one is doubtful when one listens to debates today - we did have a very Serious Economic Crisis.

At that time - although sometimes one is doubtful when one listens to debates today - we did have a very serious Economic Crisis.

The order for its construction was made as long ago as 1947, and, to the best of my recollection, it preceded the Economic Crisis by six weeks.

That distinction is that whenever any problem of this kind arose, the late Government always announced, and developed in speeches, a tremendous scheme which would give us every kind of advantage within 12 months at the outside, but then nothing ever happened except Another Economic Crisis.

1954

four mentions

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In the two world wars, and in the Economic Crisis that followed the second, the cream of our home-grown timber was put on to the market, and we have now come back to the second grade.

We are being asked to increase the emoluments or the expenses of Members at a time when the nation is just coming through an Economic Crisis, at a time when we have old-age pensioners on 32s.

I was just reflecting that the corner we were rounding in 1950 led to the Economic Crisis of 1951.

If times of Economic Crisis arose, a Chancellor might feel that an arbitrary change could be made in the level of benefits and in the conditions of their receipt.

1955

24 mentions

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Secondly, we are told that the 1949 Economic Crisis cut off much-needed finance.

Unfortunately, the financial arrangements were torpedoed by the Economic Crisis of 1931.

There is one thing about this Budget from our point of view on this side of the Committee and that is that we shall not have any more of this story of the Labour Government running away in 1951, because the present Government are also running away from an Economic Crisis; but they are doing much worse.

He talked about my right hon. Friend running away from the Economic Crisis and having an Election.

They did it in 1951, to save the country from an Economic Crisis created by hon. Gentlemen opposite.

Let me say to the party opposite that they will not find anyone to deviate on our Front Bench, and if the country faces an Economic Crisis, the Labour Party will boldly and courageously take over the reins of Government and will again take this country along the road to prosperity,as we did from 1945 until three and a half years ago.

They fail to give a figure at a time when, according to them, this country is being threatened by the approach of Another Economic Crisis.

However, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that there was an Economic Crisis at the moment and nothing could be done.

I wonder if the "Observer" referred to the Economic Crisis of 1951, too.

My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer never had to deal with an Economic Crisis to the extent that successive Chancellors of the Opposition had to deal with them while they were in power.

If we are to look forward with any hope to the solving of Our Economic Crisis, we must get down to clear thinking on both sides of the House.

Speaking with all the authority which, as Chancellor, he possesses, he said that the nation is not facing an Economic Crisis.

Will the debate on Scottish education be again postponed if there is Another Economic Crisis?

Several hon. Members on both sides of the House have pointed out to me that, when I said the other night that we were tending to try to do too much at once, I was in fact only echoing very similar words used by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition at the time of the Economic Crisis of 1947.

It is all very well to say, as the hon. Member for Kidderminster did yesterday, that the Government mentioned the Economic Crisis during the Election.

They carry a heavy responsibility for the Present Economic Crisis and we regretfully have to come to the conclusion that whatever Department is entrusted with carrying out the policy of this Government is doomed to failure.

The Chancellor himself has emphasised that there is nothing in the nature of a Serious Economic Crisis.

Not one reference to the Economic Crisis do I find in that broadcast.

We heard references earlier to a past Prime Minister, Mr. Stanley Baldwin, and I was then reminded of the words which he used upon an occasion when an Economic Crisis was confronting the country.

At one moment they say that we are in the uplands of prosperity, and the next moment that we are facing an Economic Crisis.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in answer to the question, "What did you do in the Great Economic Crisis, daddy?

My Conservative opponent did not know that there was an Economic Crisis, because he was promising great expansion, new schools, and so on.

If a wireless valve fails, or an electric lamp bulb burns out or a pair of shoes need repairing, they are faced with an Economic Crisis.

To sum up, the Government have produced this Bill because of the failure of their economic policy, because of their doctrinaire refusal to tackle the real causes of the Economic Crisis.

1956

41 mentions

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He said that we could not afford to pay such large subsidies because we were then in an Economic Crisis not unlike the one facing us today.

He produced them - no one can say that he did not - and he has produced an Economic Crisis at the same time.

I beg move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:recalling that the policies of the Government have held back our exports, swollen our imports, forced us into a balance of payments deficit, helped to reduce our reserves by a quarter and driven up our domestic price level, has no confidence in Her Majesty's Ministers or in the measures now proposed by them to overcome the Economic Crisis.

Which Amendment was to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add: "recalling that the policies of the Government have held back our exports, swollen our imports, forced us into a balance of payments deficit, helped to reduce our reserves by a quarter and driven up our domestic price level, has no confidence in Her Majesty's Ministers or in the measures now proposed by them to overcome the Economic Crisis".

As I reminded the House last October - and I will do so again now - in October, 1951, the former leader of the party opposite, Earl Attlee, gave a party political broadcast just before polling day in which he made not one single reference to the Economic Crisis then facing the country.

I have known an Economic Crisis every pay day since I was married, but my justification for intervening in this crucial debate is the knowledge I have acquired by reading the Second Report of the Select Committee on Estimates, dealing with the Development Areas.

I was interested to note that earlier today the Economic Secretary to the Treasury admitted that the question of food and food prices was one of the major interests and problems of ordinary people today at a time of Economic Crisis.

Before it is too late, before we drift further into an Economic Crisis, let the Government face the reality of the situation and take the powers and the measures that are immediately necessary for our economic salvation.

The country faces an Economic Crisis.

I think that came ill from the spokesman of a party which made things so extremely difficult for the then Chancellor, Sir Stafford Cripps, during a time of Economic Crisis.

If it is the fact, as the hon. and learned Gentleman said, that the motor car industry, for example, has expanded at a rate which the Government do not now regard as satisfactory, so that it has to be damped down, will he explain to the House why the Government last year permitted the motor car industry to expand so much more in terms of factory building when we are told by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it is that factory building and investment which is causing the Present Economic Crisis?

Freedom is all very well when the country is not in difficulties, but in an Economic Crisis we cannot afford to have imports which are not essential for the country.

Nearly nine years ago this nation faced Economic Crisis - the crisis of a community devastated by war.

Whatever else we say, this is not a picture of a nation sunk in the depths of an Economic Crisis.

The E.C.E. Survey and our own Economic Survey make it clear that the United Kingdom stands practically alone in the world in being in a state of Economic Crisis.

The hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Rippon) has made one point at least which struck me with considerable force, for he said that we ought not to claim that there is Any Economic Crisis or that we are having any difficulty with our balance of payments.

Eighteen months ago the Economic Crisis was not as acute as it is today.

This is a difficult subject and it is not easy always to relate figures in comparison, but when we have to do something abnormal to overcome a Great Economic Crisis we must look at the whole picture, whatever the future may hold.

armed forces, and I hope that, on the other hand, Mr. Bulganin and Mr. Khruschev will be able to explain to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor that if they continue the present huge expenditure they will face an Economic Crisis and capitalism will disappear in that way without a war.

partly created an Economic Crisis which shook not only the industrial but the rural communities.

Farmers remember that the disposal of farm surpluses on the market in 1929 by American producers partly created the Economic Crisis of 1931; partly created an economic crisis which shook not only the industrial but the rural communities.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is repeatedly stressing the fact that we need less Government expenditure and are in an Economic Crisis?

Personally, I believe that the restriction of capital investment is the very last action which any Government should take, even in the event of an Economic Crisis, because we thereby jeopardise the whole of our future.

If he will read in the OFFICIAL REPORT what I said he will find that I said that, in the case of capital investment, it was the last thing we ought to do if we could possibly avoid it and that we ought to take a risk with capital investment even in the event of an Economic Crisis.

I have on more than one occasion drawn the attention of the Committee to the contrast between the moral appeal made by the late Sir Stafford Cripps at times of Economic Crisis and the somewhat cynical opportunism of the Chancellor's appeals.

It could not work in time for the Economic Crisis this year.

And there has always been an Economic Crisis - always.

For that reason I said at once, without regard or particular consideration to the Economic Crisis that was brewing, that there would shortly be an increase in the retail price of milk.

I would only say that, speaking for myself and for the part of Scotland from which I come, we have great confidence that the Government will be able to see us through the Economic Crisis that lies ahead, and we stand solidly behind the Prime Minister.

It was much more limited than their previous programme, but in 1951, on account of the then Economic Crisis the plan was temporarily stopped.

The real question which we have to ask, and with which the Chancellor has not dealt, is how far this swingeing tax helps to meet the Economic Crisis.

When we strip away all the right hon. Gentleman's metaphors and oratory, what has he done to give the country a lead in facing this very Grave Economic Crisis?

The Economic Crisis was on our doorstep before the problem of Suez arose.

I believe myself that this country is facing an Economic Crisis, and that it may face siege conditions, but that this is not the way to bring home that fact to the people, and that a much more realistic and serious approach is required instead of the somewhat flippant approach which, it seems to me, is widened, though perhaps unconsciously, by this attitude that sympathetic consideration should be given by the Minister to these special applications.

Mr. Hamilton asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what immediate steps he intends to take in view of the Economic Crisis, to reduce the burden of defence expenditure.

Mr. Emrys Hughes asked the Minister of Labour if, in view of the Economic Crisis and the need for employing the maximum amount of labour in essential industries, he will introduce legislation to repeal the National Service Acts.

Mr. Lewis asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the Economic Crisis resulting from petrol rationing, he will arrange to meet the Trades Union Congress and the Federation of British Industries for discussions on our economic difficulties and, in return for an assurance from the Trades Union Congress that it will encourage wage restraint, give a promise that the Government will suspend all controversial legislation, and plan the economy so that all sacrifices are shared among the British people.

asked the Minister of Labour if, in view of the Economic Crisis and the need for employing the maximum amount of labour in essential industries, he will introduce legislation to repeal the National Service Acts.

asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the Economic Crisis resulting from petrol rationing, he will arrange to meet the Trades Union Congress and the Federation of British Industries for discussions on our economic difficulties and, in return for an assurance from the Trades Union Congress that it will encourage wage restraint, give a promise that the Government will suspend all controversial legislation, and plan the economy so that all sacrifices are shared among the British people.

the Economic Crisis resulting from the Government's action in Suez; thirdly, the fact that the Rent Bill has been introduced and it has become clear since the Gracious Speech of 6th November - and not previously - that it is going to produce throughout the country, and particularly in the large towns, a complete dislocation of the housing position and undoubtedly a large increase in the number of people who will, on general grounds, need council houses, and, lastly, the very remarkable statement of the Minister of Agriculture, which appears to indicate that the philosophy of the right hon. Gentleman in confining subsidies to those who need them does not apply to landowners in connection with pigs and pigsties.

It seems to me that the Present Economic Crisis may be about the last chance for this country to recover as an economic great power.

1957

19 mentions

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If the Guillotine procedure is used it should be for some good purpose; for something which will be of value to the country in the Present Economic Crisis.

I have a reference in my notes to the fact that in ten years, under Socialist and Tory Governments, Britain has staggered from one Economic Crisis to another.

How many of them are we going to fire off before we solve the Economic Crisis?

I wonder whether it has struck the attention of the Committee that, when this country is going through an Economic Crisis and a Tory Government are in power, we hear cries about equality of sacrifice.

I do not underestimate the difficulty which my right hon. Friend faces in trying to get this over to the country as a whole - all sections, all classes alike - for, apparently, although various Chancellors during the twelve years I have had the honour to sit in this House, have warned the nation we have been living beyond our means and facing an Economic Crisis, almost every section is living better today than it did ten years ago.

If there had been an Economic Crisis and things were going badly, if there had been a demand for sacrifices all round and the Chancellor had said that he must keep a tax of 15 per cent.

It was only after the Election that the present Lord Privy Seal, who had denied that there was an Economic Crisis, found that it was so serious that he had to introduce another Budget to get the £150 million back.

He began to tell us about the developing Economic Crisis of 1955.

Looking back, I think that would have been the height of the Economic Crisis in 1951, and it would have been difficult to bring Part V of the Act into operation.

It is bad enough to have an Economic Crisis, but when we have to listen to sober lectures on economics, which are as devoid of logic as they are of humour, how can we have any honest prospect or confidence that the Government's measures will benefit the people?

Everyone will agree that it is morally wrong that we should expect the young and the old to bear the greatest burdens of an Economic Crisis.

Even if some Conservative speakers are right when they say that more will be spent on education, it is not helping to solve the Present Economic Crisis to transfer expenditure from the central Government to local authorities.

Faced again with a Similar Economic Crisis in 1949, they introduced cuts in the then investment programme of £140 million or 10 per cent.

All these things are reacting against what the Government, yesterday and the day before, and last week, tried to persuade us all to do - to co-operate with the Government to get through the Economic Crisis which we are facing.

We as Britishers are anxious in these days of Economic Crisis to do the best we can to pull the country through the crisis, but we cannot pull it through unless we take the workers with us.

The Bill is condemned because, at a time when the country, by and large, is doing very well, in spite of the Economic Crisis, all we can do for the poorest of the people, if they happen to be smokers, is to give them 2s.

It was at a time of Great Economic Crisis, when there were tremendous economic problems in the world, and the Government of the day thought it would be a good idea if they undertook an inquiry into the reasons for the variation in the birth rate.

Mr. Chapman asked the Minister of Education whether, in view of the postponement, in the Present Economic Crisis, of many projects of national importance, needed by the community as a whole, he will advise the Governors of King Edward School, Birmingham, to postpone their plans for a new house for the chief master.

Particularly at times of Economic Crisis, people have often said that they regard their own industry or enterprise as so essential that it should have a favourable rate of interest.

1958

six mentions

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It may well be that the right hon. and learned Gentleman, the Government and hon. Members opposite believe that their policy of dealing with Our Economic Crisis is the right one.

At the time of the Economic Crisis, late in 1947, they applied a 20 per cent.

We all recall how that Budget came about, how, earlier in the year, we had had the Election Budget, introduced by the Lord Privy Seal, and how, in the Economic Crisis which occurred and which the Government had denied had ever been with us, he found it necessary in the autumn to introduce the autumn Budget.

In February, £1,940 million in May, £2,031 million and in August of this year, £2,092 million, which is more than they were in the month before the Economic Crisis.

Bearing in mind the obvious difficulties which must occur when there have been no fewer than four Ministers, the fact that we have had an Economic Crisis and that the Government had to look again at this kind of matter and every other consideration, I nevertheless ask the House to bear in mind the people of Crawley.

In the Economic Crisis at the end of the 'twenties and the beginning of the 'thirties, unemployment rose rapidly as soon as a Socialist Administration took over.

1959

five mentions

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In his pre-Election Budget, the Lord Privy Seal risked - and caused - an Economic Crisis for electoral advantage.

But consider the chronic sick and the aged sick, who had been charged prescription charges because there was an Economic Crisis two years ago.

But is not the Chancellor aware that these vicious chargeswere imposed by the present Prime Minister, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he was facing, as he said, a very Serious Economic Crisis?

This is what the Fabian pamphlet says, and it is not a Tory pamphlet: "It was envisaged that arrears of maintenance having been made good, 'a comprehensive reconstruction of the principal national routes' would begin in 1951, which would include the building of some motorways … The Economic Crisis of 1947 intervened, authorisations fell to less than a tenth of expected amounts, and the Barnes Plan shrivelled away" The pamphlet went on to say: "A Special Roads Act was passed in 1949 to enable motorways and other traffic-restricted roads to be built.

This is what the Fabian pamphlet says, and it is not a Tory pamphlet:It was envisaged that arrears of maintenance having been made good, 'a comprehensive reconstruction of the principal national routes' would begin in 1951, which would include the building of some motorways … The Economic Crisis of 1947 intervened, authorisations fell to less than a tenth of expected amounts, and the Barnes Plan shrivelled awayThe pamphlet went on to say:A Special Roads Act was passed in 1949 to enable motorways and other traffic-restricted roads to be built.

1960

nine mentions

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He was Parliamentary Secretary throughout the period of Our Economic Crisis, and any ideas that he may have had had to remain as ideas because he was always told that they were very fine but that there was no money for them.

I frankly wonder why everything that the Government do in times of Economic Crisis must be repressive and negative.

The country's view of the Socialist Party's economic policy is that the last time it attempted to lay down a policy it failed so dismally to keep the cost of living steady or to keep confidence in the£that in 1951 there was an Economic Crisis.

But to base the future economy of 52 million people on that is to ensure that at some time in the future, in a rapidly changing society, we shall be faced with a Serious Economic Crisis.

But to base the future economy of 52 million people on that is to ensure that at some time in the future, in a rapidly changing society, we shall be faced with a serious Economic Crisis.

We are going into a changing and more and more difficult world, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his colleagues have blundered around for the last few years and have produced a situation in which the most we can say is that we are not in an Economic Crisis at the present time.

I think that mast hon. Members who have given thought to this matter must deplore that it is rather difficult to comprehend that the investment situation next year will help Any Economic Crisis which is likely to arise this year.

I would not talk about an Economic Crisis - I think that that would be wrong - but I agree that the expansion of our exports is necessary if we are to do all the things we wait to do in the world.

It is surely very much in the interest of this country to keep this ore which, I understand, is the last suitable ore in this country as a strategic reserve in a time of Economic Crisis or war.

1961

48 mentions

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The tragedy of last week is that, once again, the Conservatives are using an Economic Crisis brought on by their own policies as an excuse for attacking the social services.

I take it from Professor Jewkes who made it when a Treasury official was trying to tell the Royal Commission on the Remuneration of Doctors andDentists how we should have an Economic Crisis if the doctors and dentists pressed their claim.

There was such a Guillotine admittedly in 1932 on the Import Duties Bill, but at least one could say at that time that the country was still involved in a very Grave Economic Crisis.

The economy of Kenya is to a large extent dependent on the continued presence of the British farming community, and a rush to the coast would precipitate a Major Economic Crisis and a breakdown of such social services as exists and endanger the entire educational programme.

The Sudan has made a good recovery from the Economic Crisis through which it passed two years ago.

An Economic Crisis faces football in this country.

The Economic Crisis which the Chancellor predicted in November last year is upon us now.

Moreover, it is not one of them mainly for the reasons which I have given but also because if the economy is overturned by an Economic Crisis due to international speculation with the £ or the pressure of interests who are worried because we are not following a sufficiently orthodox financial policy in this country, then the Chancellor ought to introduce an interim Budget and a second Finance Bill so that his proposals may be properly debated, with opportunity for amendment and opportunity to consider a number of different methods.

He told us that we were running into an Economic Crisis.

The Chancellor says that he would use the tax only in times of Economic Crisis.

It is quite clear to me now, from what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said and from the reactions on the other side of the Committee, that the presence of this regulator as it stands is not so much to save the nation from Economic Crisis as to save the face of the Chancellor, because of his insistence that it is required only for a short time and that he will think again about the permanent means, and that this is the last we shall ever see of this one.

That means that every employer in Northern Ireland,whether employing 100, 200, or 300 people, will be involved in this proposal should an Economic Crisis arise in Britain.

The Minister could choose a day when the Test Match was on, or a very sunny day, or when the Government had created an Economic Crisis, or when there was a catastrophe in foreign affairs.

Does the Leader of the House agree that, from the questions put to him, it appears to be the consensus of opinion in the House that the four most important questions facing the country are the position in Berlin, the position in Kuwait, the position in Africa, and the Common Market, not to mention the Economic Crisis?

It is obviously important economically, and it has not a little to do with the Economic Crisis which we are undergoing.

Is it any wonder that we have an Economic Crisis if this is the way the Government run nationalised industries?

Will he bear in mind that we are facing an Economic Crisis - [Interruption.

in this sense he is the victim of the Economic Crisis into which the Chancellor's policy has landed us.

It is probably true that the Minister would like to have given some additional help at the last minute to the midde water fleet, but wasprevented by the Treasury; in this sense he is the victim of the Economic Crisis into which the Chancellor's policy has landed us.

The Government are facinga Serious Economic Crisis.

Next week we shall hear the proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer for dealing with the Economic Crisis.

Now, we read in the Conservative Press the ominous news that the Prime Minister has decided to intervene in the Economic Crisis.

In 1947, winding up a debate on the Economic Crisis at that time, Sir Stafford Cripps said:But when we have considered broadly and in detail, as we have during the course of this debate, the actual steps that we must take, we came back to the most important consideration of all: our failure or success will depend in the last resort upon the spirit of our people.

The words I have just read are as apposite and as relevant to This Economic Crisis now as they were to that crisis which hit this country only two years after a great war - and this is sixteen years after that great war.

Will the Prime Minister keep in mind the fact that it would be very helpful to the nation if he would broadcast and go on television to explain how This Economic Crisis has arisen after all the promises he made at the last election and in his previous appearances?

I was, however, a little mystified by the proposition put to us by the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) that eleven years of Tory misgovernment had brought us to This Economic Crisis and the suggestion which he proceeded to make that, possibly, it was only an aritifical crisis.

It is no good saying that the Government did not know about the Economic Crisis when they appointed Dr. Beeching.

Were the teachers responsible for the Economic Crisis?

The speech of the hon. Member for Scarborough (Sir A. Spearman) typifies the tremendous gulf there is between the approaches of the two parties, not only to This Present Economic Crisis but to the life of the nation as a whole.

Nigel was very depressed in exactly the same sort of circumstances which we are discussing today - an Economic Crisis.

Every time we run into an Economic Crisis it is the usury in our society that is elevated to the highest pinnacle.

The Chancellor's proposals, which we are asked to endorse tonight, have had the worst Press of any statement made in an Economic Crisis at any time that I can recall.

We have an Economic Crisis and yet during the lifetime of the present Administration £15,000 million have been spent on defence.

Perhaps the greatest criticism of our civilisation is that we can renovate and keep up to date our basic industries only through preparation for war, and that as soon as we in the West start to think in terms of disarmament and the redeployment of our labour force through cutting down arms we get into an Economic Crisis.

The Economic Crisis would continue and the country would be faced with an insoluble problem.

So we have to be prepared to rethink our whole policy in regard to our commitments with the U.S.A. As long as we are content just to accept the ideas of Mr. McNamara and his band, the people who are in charge of American defence policy, and to follow that line of policy, the two things that we are faced with are the possibilities of getting involved in a nuclear war, or, if we escape that, of being involved in an Economic Crisis which is absolutely insoluble.

The Minister and hon. Members, of whom I am pleased to see so many at this early hour of the morning, may be interested to hear the resolution passed unanimously by the executive of the National Union of Teachers last Saturday morning:The Executive of the National Union of Teachers bitterly regrets the action of the Minister of Education in summarily rejecting the proposals negotiated by the Burnham Committee, and the more so since they fall far short of the teachers' claim and were only accepted with great reluctance in a time of Economic Crisis.

If, however, as a Government, we are to give, as, I believe, we are capable of doing, a lead to the country in This Economic Crisis, we cannot do it when the first important step is being discussed in the way that it must be discussed.

The right hon. Gentleman has made it clear that he would have intervened in any case, whether there had been an Economic Crisis or not.

Unlike most other constituencies in Britain, that disappointment has been increased by the fact that the Chancellor, in announcing that the country had run into an Economic Crisis, appeared to single out these self-same areas for special treatment; but not the kind of special treatment we had hoped we should receive.

Frequently in the debate right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have talked about the Economic Crisis with which we are faced.

I now come to the section of the Gracious Speech dealing with domestic affairs and the Economic Crisis at the present time.

The suggestion behind it is explicit, that measures are taken, and it is very convenient to have an Economic Crisis half-way through one's period of office.

Our trade unions- I speak as a trade unionist in constant touch with the trade unions at home- believe that, in general, the workers are of the opinion that they are the first that have to make sacrifices in an Economic Crisis and thelast to profit from a booming economy.

We have come full circle, not for the first time in an Economic Crisis, and we have had the same call from the right hon. Gentleman - "I would like to do it, but the country cannot afford it".

Every two or three years since then, we have had Economic Crisis after economic crisis as a consequence of our attempting to maintain a burden which the economy could not bear.

A great deal of attention was paid to this in the White Paper on public investment about a year ago, but in practice the Government are not really following out that principle in what they proposed to do during the summer to meet the Present Economic Crisis.

If every industry in the country could say the same, the Chancellor would not have to bother about imposing a pay pause or about an Economic Crisis.

1962

21 mentions

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I said that I would have had far more respect for the Government if they had boldly and clearly said that, in view of the Economic Crisis, they were now prepared to breach the agreements instead of evading the issue by saying that they were only advising the British Transport Commission.

A country may have had a severe earthquake, for instance, or it may be going through an Economic Crisis, or may have an unstable Government which is not able to hold elections.

In the midst of an Economic Crisis, is it not deplorable that a Minister should be taken from an important Department in order to prop up the fortunes of a tottering Government?

They have been crowded out by the Economic Crisis, the clamp down, the pay pause, and the clumsy antics of the Government in relation to wage negotiation and arbitration.

The then Parliamentary Secretary, on Second Reading, said that pensions now had a new look, thanks to the sound policies of the Government, and after three months we were in an Economic Crisis.

In the face of these facts, are we really entitled to say that the only answer we have is to set up a committee, that we think the position is serious, that we ought to do something about it but that we cannot do anything about it at presentbecause there is an Economic Crisis and that the Chancellor is grappling with economic difficulties?

Surely the position is that the Economic Crisis which has been used as a justification for treating the nurses so unjustly is a crisis of the Government's own making.

It may be Another Economic Crisis brought on by a Tory Government.

Tory Governments have never had to face a catastrophe of that kind in the whole of the past eleven years, yet there has been one Economic Crisis after another.

If the country were now in a state of Economic Crisis, it is abundantly clear that my right hon. and learned Friend would be criticised very sharply on both sides of the Committee for that.

Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that in his Budget speech the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the economy had not been on an even keel, and that over the last few months and years we have had one Economic Crisis after another?

Therefore, the position should not have been aggravated last year when restrictions were imposed on house building by local authorities as part of the Government's measures to meet the Economic Crisis.

In an Economic Crisis, the Government always tend to get drawn into these matters and go beyond the point which some of us think they should go, as in this case.

In education, the right hon. Gentleman is projecting the Present Economic Crisis forward two years.

In education, the right hon. Gentleman is projecting the present Economic Crisis forward two years.

It refers to the possible factors which may inhibit the success of the plan, and, remembering what happened to the capital expenditure programmes of local authorities towards the end of last year, as part of the measures to meet the Economic Crisis, we may be forgiven for thinking that the remarks contained in paragraph 46 may be in the form of an apology for the non-fulfilment of the plan even before its first stage has been executed.

First, they were panicked into their decision last July by the Economic Crisis.

The only policy they practiseis to react to an Economic Crisis in two ways.

That would lead the country straight away into an Economic Crisis and would threaten the stability of the position of the whole country.

There is only one difference between hon. Gentlemen opposite when it comes to the question how to handle an Economic Crisis and what kind of economic policy to pursue.

Before the 625 line system is introduced in April, 1964, this industry will be going through a Serious Economic Crisis.

1963

14 mentions

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An Economic Crisis will be inevitable.

Or was it because of the Economic Crisis of 1961?

Does the Minister appreciate that this is a serious cut in school building over the next two years and that we simply cannot justify it by an Economic Crisis twelve months ago?

In that year, one of Economic Crisis for Canada, our imports remained about the same - £349·3 million - but our direct exports went sharply down to £187·9 million.

As I have said, his noble forerunner was acting under the duress of Economic Crisis, but the article concludes:This is a shabby little episode made the more shabby by the shifty way in which it has been put across.

The right hon. Gentleman has given London an allocation of £877,000, about half what Lord Eccles gave London under the duress of Economic Crisis.

The plain truth is that to stay at school until 18 presents an Economic Crisis for many working-class homes today.

Recently we had a debate on schools, and we discovered that the right hon. Gentleman is such a weak Minister that he has enforced more severe and savage cuts on school building than Lord Eccles did at the height of an Economic Crisis.

I have always had a warm spot in my heart for "Old Gurney", ever since he came to speak for me in my constituency during a period of Economic Crisis, a situation with which we are all, unfortunately, far too frequently familiar.

We had to make a recommendation and, as no doubt the hon. Member for Wokingham will recall, this was during a period of Economic Crisis.

That means that in 1965, come what may, comefair wind or foul, come Economic Crisis or boom, come war or peace, whatever the circumstances may be, the Government of die day shall grant a licence to the Independent Television Authority.

Some said to me that in 1961 they recruited because they had confidence that the economy would expand but that since then there had been an Economic Crisis, which developed in 1962, with the unemployment figures of that year and early this year, and they felt that they could not now respond to the Government's appeal to take on more trainees.

We had an Economic Crisis in 1961 and he made a botch of things then.

Every time that there has been an Economic Crisis, it has been seized upon by the Government as an opportunity to put taxes on the sick and to transfer the burden, so far as it lay in their power, from the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the employer and the employee.

1964

20 mentions

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We ought to be quite clear that one of the ways in which education has suffered is by constantly making plans to expand it, and then suddenly saying that there is an Economic Crisis and the public services must take the first cut.

The present Minister of Defence was right in 1558 in saying that if we spent the kind of money involved in an independent nuclear deterrent we would he forcing ourselves into Economic Crisis and would get the worst of both worlds, because we would not provide an adequate nuclear deterrent or adequate conventional forces or, as he added, adequate social services all at the same time.

Despite the denial of the hon. Member for Ilford, South and other hon. Members about their attitude of hostility to the trade unions, there is no doubt that one of the tactics of the Conservative Party from now to the election will be to pin upon the workers the blame for the Economic Crisis that the Government have created.

Since the individual prescription charges were put on by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 1956 Economic Crisis and since the charges were doubled by the present Leader of he House in the 1961 economic crisis, does not the right hon. Gentleman, who keeps saying that the economy has never been stronger, feel that it is now strong enough to remove these charges which bear so heavily on the sick and disabled?

If we are to avoid Economic Crisis, we shall have to devise a method of improving the purchasing power of our people so that they can buy the products of mass production.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman's first Budget gave the impression of being based on a detailed forecast of the future, but it was proved wrong on every matter of importance and Ministers were confronted with an Economic Crisis as astonishing and urgent as it was unexpected.

Does not the Prime Minister recognise that there will be a smell of blood in the air at that time - blue blood particularly - and does he not recognise that in addition to this question there is an Economic Crisis looming up, as his matchstick exercises will have convinced him?

It is, in our view, a principle which is mandatory when the country is faced with Economic Crisis.

- and that there is an Economic Crisis which has now to be corrected.

First, this position has now come about - so many people claim - because we have inherited an Economic Crisis.

The so-called Economic Crisis is not something new or startling.

With regard to his prudence, I seriously submit that he played down the question of an Economic Crisis, certainly during the last week of the General Election campaign.

I ask the hon. Gentleman to make a distinction between the long-term problems which I want to discuss with the building societies and the short-term problem of interest rates in the Present Economic Crisis.

In 1961 there was an Economic Crisis, which resulted in the Ministry of Housing and Local Government calling for lists of prospective projects.

Thus, the Economic Crisis had disappeared again and hon. Member opposite were calling for an increase in unproductive national expenditure.

I hope he does not think that the Economic Crisis which faces us started on 16th October.

I say quite categorically that one of the answers to the Economic Crisis is undoubtedly a drastic cut in our military expenditure.

In this respect I trust that the Recent Economic Crisis may have been instructive to the Government for, as everyone knows, it was our European and American allies who came to our help and lent us the money necessary to tide us over the crisis.

May I remind hon. Members of what Sir Stafford Cripps did when we were facing a Similar Economic Crisis in 1949?

I say at once that this is not in any case suitable matter for a Private Member's Bill, and I am surprised, when the country has an Economic Crisis that should be worrying the Government, and when we have a defence crisis to worry them, that once more we have to drag up this question of letting the murderer go free.

1965

36 mentions

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The hon. Member will be aware that we have kept to the major programmes already announced, despite the Economic Crisis we inherited, in a way in which we do not think that hon. Members opposite would have done.

I cannot find anything contrary to their pledges in what the Government did during an Acute Economic Crisis.

So instead of getting permanent employment in Belfast, we would get an Economic Crisis.

They alleged that it was the Labour Government's failure to inspire confidence in international banking circles which had caused an Economic Crisis.

I hope, in this connection, that the hon. Gentleman will not suggest that in 1961–62 there was a general cut-back on education because of an Economic Crisis.

It must be seen, first, in the context of the Grave Economic Crisis that we inherited from the last Government - the crisis that the hon. Member for Lewisham, North rejected as "a threadbare argument about the balance of payments".

It must be seen, first, in the context of the grave Economic Crisis that we inherited from the last Government - the crisis that the hon. Member for Lewisham, North rejected as "a threadbare argument about the balance of payments".

When hon. Members opposite went into office in 1951 their excuse for not dealing with the arts was that there was an Economic Crisis.

Gentlemen opposite know perfectly well that had they been in power, faced with the sort of Economic Crisis which they left to us, they would not have dreamt of doing it.

I hope that we will not get tonight the rather weak excuse given by the Chief Secretary last week that it was because of the Terrible Economic Crisis.

We did what we could as at a time when we were faced with a Terrible Economic Crisis which we had inherited because the Tory Government had been fiddling and juggling with the whole financial machine of this country in the hope of gaining some election advantage.

I would be ruled out of order if I tried to make a direct reply to the Chancellor's remarks but may I draw his attention to the excellent article in the Financial Times about the cause of the Economic Crisis?

I think that the judges would be wise to take the action referred to in the Solicitors' Journal and voluntarily recognise that this comes at a bad moment from a group who are expected, as we are expected, to give clear leadership to the nation at a time of Economic Crisis.

I do not believe that the Tory Party would have introduced the National Insurance Bill to increase pensions in the face of an Economic Crisis, or the Rent Bill, or a Finance Bill which was fought through against the bitter opposition of hon.Members opposite.

If any trade union official wants an object lesson on how to extinguish the income guiding light, all he needs to do,I am sorry to say, is to read the history of the judges' trade union activities in the national Economic Crisis of 1931.

He even succeeded in lumbering us with the Present Economic Crisis.

The country is facing an Economic Crisis.

Prescription charges were introduced by right hon. Gentlemen opposite in one Economic Crisis, in 1952, made worse and more unfair by charging separately for each prescription in the next economic crisis, in 1956, doubled in the next economic crisis in 1961 following their old rule, "When in difficulties put the burden on the backs of those least able to bear them", but it was noticeable that when the economy improved, as it usually did before a General Election, and there were vast tax handouts, there was no remission of this burden.

Despite this fact, Tory Ministers, who must have known that the Economic Crisis was getting worse and worse, indulged in these promises, including, for example, in the Tory manifesto the promise to build or rebuild 300 hospitals.

It would have used the Economic Crisis as an excuse for carrying out none of these social reforms.

The Economic Crisis, with the unpopular measures it had demanded was now virtually over.

Right hon. and hon. Members opposite are no innocents in this matter of creating Economic Crisis.

The hon. Gentleman boasted that in an Economic Crisis under the Tories expenditure on roads was doubled.

That was the policy of the former Government when faced with an Economic Crisis which was nothing like as serious as the crisis which we face today.

If we look generally at expenditure on capital projects by the Government, the increases are substantial, notwithstanding that ever since we came to power we have been facing an Economic Crisis.

And the country is facing an Economic Crisis.

There is no such thing in an Economic Crisis as being able to contract out of it.

Now we are faced with Another Economic Crisis at home and a heavy arms expenditure.

Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that his right hon. Friend wrote to me saying that when they fixed the brick target the Government could not have foreseen the Economic Crisis?

Is it not the case that, last time there was a Major Economic Crisis, the party opposite made deliberate cuts in housing whereas the present Government have speeded the housing drive up?

He claims that the Labour Party exaggerated the Economic Crisis.

I said also that the Ministry should undertake, whilst the Economic Crisis is with us and capital expenditure is restricted, not to authorise any further rail closures.

Increased unemployment occurred whenever there was an Economic Crisis, because of the methods adopted by Governments then.

Surely the Government do not believe that the Economic Crisis is permanent, and for that reason I am waiting to hear some member of the Government telling us why this Bill is a permanent Measure.

The hon. Member for Londonderry went on to ask, "Why treat an Economic Crisis which is deemed to be temporary by introducing a permanent Measure"?

But, and this is the difference with the Asian pillar, if Britain were forced by an Economic Crisis to make a choice, it would be from the Asian pillar that we would withdraw, because for us Europe must have priority over Asia.

1966

87 mentions

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Looking back to the situation six months ago, an Economic Crisis faced the country.

The measures or non-measures which the Government have taken to remedy the Economic Crisis into which they sofoolishly and unnecessarily plunged the country when they came into office 18 months ago - [Interruption.

On the 21st January the Prime Minister told his own party that the Economic Crisis, with the unpopular measures demanded was now virtually over.

In spite of the measures which had to be taken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to deal with This Economic Crisis, the north of England continued to get the lion's share of the new jobs which were being created.

When the new Government came into power, faced with an economic situation which had similar characteristics to the earlier one, there was a danger - I did not fear it, because I knew something of the kind of priorities which the Government had in terms of regional planning - that in squeezing the economy or in dealing with the Economic Crisis facing the country, measures would be taken which would drive the North-East economy down to the same depths of despair which it had reached in 1962.

I must say to the right hon. Gentleman, however, that I thought that in his speech he uncovered unsuspected political qualities - most of us thought that the only thing he had to hide was an Economic Crisis.

As for the subsequent measures of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, those were dictated by the Economic Crisis inherited from the previous Government.

Despite the appalling pressure of the Economic Crisis, full employment was maintained, but something even better was achieved.

In most of the situations in which this has been done, including that of last year, the exercise of that control has been by a blunt instrument, or has been arbitrary or perhaps unfair, and it has been felt to be unfair by those in the construction industry who have said that they always take the brunt of an Economic Crisis to a greater extent than others.

He explained thatin Another Economic Crisis, the measures which were appropriate to the 1965 crisis would probably not be exactly what was needed".

There is no doubt that the original reason which was given for the introduction of the Bill was the Economic Crisis and the statement of 27th July.

So I say that we must try - if I may use a military metaphor - to fire a few shots across the bows of this particular project, and if we can postpone our arguments till another time let us postpone this discussion, and let the Chief Secretary to the Treasury take back this enormously expensive programme which I believe will militate against what we need most in this country - a constructive effort to build the factories which will produce the goods which will save this country from Economic Crisis.

In present circumstances, we must take account of what they are doing because of Our Acute Economic Crisis outside.

As the last Annual Price Review was agreed to only because of the country's Economic Crisis, will it be possible to have a debate on the economic crisis in the agricultural industry?

In addition to the special assistance in the regions, the raising of the £50,000 limit to a limit of £100,000, which probably cost about £30 million in a year of economic difficulties, it should also be noticed that after the Bank Rate increase in the Economic Crisis after October, 1964, the Chancellor helped the local authorities by fixing a rate for quota loans the result of which was that the differential between the quota rate and the last resort rate widened.

of their salaries during a Major Economic Crisis.

I fear that we shall have to use the regulator, and it is worth reflecting that, despite all their ballyhoo and propaganda, in this year of Economic Crisis to the nation, the Government will have to fall back on the highly intelligent instrument that was introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd).

As we are still in a state of Economic Crisis, will the Minister try once again to negotiate a compromise with the steel industry in this matter instead of dividing the nation in these difficult times by pursuing the old-fashioned White Paper nationalisation policy?

After telling us that the object of the Bill was to anticipate crises - presumably created by his colleagues - the Parliamentary Secretary said of the Bill that in Another Economic Crisis measures appropriate to the 1965 crisis would probably not be exactly what was needed.

I was seeking to show that it was urgent because these borrowings by the Bank of England, during the last few days, have indicated the extreme severity and urgency of the Economic Crisis which the nation is facing.

I want to make it clear, so that there is no misunderstanding on either side of the House, that I regard the Economic Crisis which brought about the major problem as something which we inherited in 1964 from the Conservative Government.

I submit, therefore, that there is nothing in the timetable to justify the Guillotine in this case, no consideration of time - unless it be matters that will impinge on the timetable by reason of the Economic Crisis which the Government have promoted.

This is the worst possible state to be in if it is desired either to increase productivity or to fight an Economic Crisis.

No one is suggesting, I think, that the industry should in any way "opt out" of the Economic Crisis, but, after all, any industry can reasonably expect a Measure of this kind to meet at least two requirements.

Mr. Arthur Lewis asked the Prime Minister whether he will give an assurance that he will not, during the period of the Current Economic Crisis, create any new Ministerial posts, or take any action in Ministerial appointments which will increase the annual total costs in the existing salary scales of those holding Ministerial appointments.

Mr. Burden asked the Prime Minister if he will make it a condition of their continuing tenancy that the three Ministers concerned should now pay an economic rent for the accommodation recently provided free of all charges, in view of the sacrifices now demanded of all members of the community in efforts to solve the Economic Crisis.

Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that a three-tier system of comprehensive education might he very appropriate for the City of Liverpool and would be likely to save money in this time of Economic Crisis?

Such firms may well have to say in This Economic Crisis, "X who is legless, is inflexible, because he can do only one job ".

Mr. Onslow asked the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs what steps he is taking, in the light of the Present Economic Crisis, to reduce the establishment of the Department under his control.

Mr. Onslow asked the Minister of Technology what steps he is taking, in the light of the Present Economic Crisis, to reduce the establishment of the Department under his control.

Mr. Onslow asked the Prime Minister what instructions he has given, in the light of the Present Economic Crisis, for the reduction of the establishment of the Civil Service.

Mr. Onslow asked the Minister of Overseas Development what steps he is taking, in the light of the Present Economic Crisis, to reduce the establishment of the Department under his control.

Mr. Onslow asked the Minister of Power what steps he is taking, in the light of the Present Economic Crisis, to reduce the establishment of the Department under his control.

In this, as in all matters affecting the Economic Crisis, the Government are entitled to rely on people's loyalty.

I would say to the right hon. Gentleman that to proceed with outright nationalisation of steel at any time, in the view of my right hon. and hon. Friends, would be wrong, but to press ahead with it at this particular time, when Britain is in the midst of a Dire Economic Crisis and living on borrowed money, is sheer lunacy.

The whole country knows that in the Present Economic Crisis the Government have acted too late, but we hope that they will do the right thing, and that is what we would like them to do with the steel industry.

Mr. Brian Harrison asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether, as a result of the Present Economic Crisis, there is to be any re-phasing of London overspill building, with particular reference to Witham in Essex.

Mr. A. Royle asked the Prime Minister if he proposes any cuts in the expenditure on nuclear weapons in the light of the Present Economic Crisis.

Mr. Arthur Lewis asked the Prime Minister why he will not give an assurance that he will not, during the period of the Current Economic Crisis, create any new Ministerial posts, or take action in Ministerial appointments which will increase the annual total costs in the existing salary scales of those holding Ministerrial appointments.

Mr. Onslow asked the Prime Minister what action he is taking in the light of the Present Economic Crisis, to reduce the staff employed at No.

of his members support him when he denigrates the Labour Government while they are struggling to deal with the Economic Crisis.

I say with sincerity to the Government that unless we are prepared to break these boundaries and initiate fresh thinking and policies, particularly in the military sphere, the Present Economic Crisis will only lead to further crises.

In his explanation for the Economic Crisis last summer, in his statement on 29th July, be blamed the effect of Japan's grave dollar shortage on her purchases from Australia ",and alsothe impact of the Chinese gold buying spree".

They felt that the Present Economic Crisis was but one in a series of crises still to come.

I was horrified this afternoon by the Prime Minister's suggestion that the nation had been caught by surprise by this 1831 Economic Crisis.

Mr. Onslow asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps he is taking, in the light of the Present Economic Crisis, to reduce the establishment of the Departments under his control.

If, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer has affirmed, these proposals will ensure that the British people are released for good and all from the perpetual burden of Economic Crisis, if I could believe that this is the last crisis that Britain will have to face, and if I could accept the words of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, that when these measures become operative we shall see "soaring exports", then I would be happy to go to my old colleagues in the trade union movement and local government and tell them that, unfortunately, they must remain clobbered.

Let us look at the point of view of the Welsh people, who have to bear "more than their share of the price", of this "English" Economic Crisis.

We have heard much analysis of the past from some hon. Members, but most of the valuable contributions from speaker after speaker have concerned the question: what do we do now in the Economic Crisis?

I was horrified this afternoon by the Prime Minister's suggestion that the nation had been caught by surprise by This Economic Crisis.

Mr. J. E. B. Hill asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether, in view of the Economic Crisis and the need to concentrate all available educational resources where they are most needed, the proposals for a University of the Air will now be shelved.

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether, in view of the Economic Crisis and the need to concentrate all available educational resources where they are most needed, the proposals for a University of the Air will now be shelved.

[That this House, having noted the Prime Minister's statement containing the emergency measures to meet the Present Economic Crisis, expresses disappointment at its, generally negative tone and, in particular, is concerned that he did not make use of the opportunity to provide new incentives to the agricultural industry to increase production, whereby the industry's magnificent record of increased productivity, which the Prime Minister has himself publicly acknowledged, could be harnessed to save food imports, and tints make an important contribution to the balance of payments situation; and urges him to open immediate talks with the industry's leaders towards this end.

Economic Crisis, 133, 134.

Prior to that time the figures were fixed in regard to the ability of the industry to play its part in a Major Economic Crisis.

How can we encourage industry to expand into these factories in the middle of a continuing Economic Crisis?

I can understand the anxieties of hon. Members opposite about what happens to development areas in times of Economic Crisis, because we had that experience in every one of the years to which I have referred.

However, the Government are taking very few of the measures to deal with the Economic Crisis which many of us think should be taken.

In This Economic Crisis some of us go further than fearing that the Government are taking the wrong courses to deal with it.

It is unlikely that people will believe that the Government are fully involved in the Economic Crisis, which is perhaps the worst that the country has ever faced, unless the Government and the Civil Service are prepared to show that they will share in the sacrifices and in the redeployment that others are being asked to make.

I also wonder whether there are prestige Departments, or parts of Departments, that one was prepared to carry in ordinary years, but that one should look at again in the context of a Serious Economic Crisis.

There are lots of other functions which he knows could be dispensed with without any harm being done to the handling of the Present Economic Crisis and which would benefit the present situation.

Secondly, it is ironic and fortunate that some decisions were deferred because, curiously enough deferment of decisions about the purchase of aircraft by British airlines until the advent of the Present Economic Crisis must have greatly strengthened the hand of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Aviation in insuring that B.E.A. continued to purchase its aircraft in this country.

I beg the Minister, before we finalise this issue, to remember that we are in an Economic Crisis and that in the years which have gone by he has been telling us that he could not do this, that and the other for Brighton and Hove because of economic crises.

We have been very worried indeed, because the Declaration of Intent and the White Paper had been regarded as sacrosanct by the First Secretary and incorporated in legislation even though it is perfectly clear that the figures set out in the Declaration which are based on the same assumptions and forecasts which were in the National Plan have proved completely invalid, and even though the First Secretary himself has had to admit that he will have to sit down again with his advisers and determine what alternative set of figures are relevant in the Present Economic Crisis into which the Government have plunged us.

Mr. Rankin asked the Minister of Aviation if, in view of the Economic Crisis, he will give general directions to the British Overseas Airways Corporation and British European Airways to confine their purchases of new aircraft to home manufacturers in the long-term in terests of British aviation.

Mr. Arthur Lewis asked the Prime Minister if, during the period of the Economic Crisis, he will instruct Ministers not to make public speeches dealing with the position of sterling.

He goes on producing more freeze and more squeeze, culminating in what we realise, looking back, is the Worst Economic Crisis since 1931.

Indeed, I am particularly concerned at this time of Economic Crisis that the measures that have been taken by the Government - and I do not intend to discuss them in any detail - should not fall too heavily on regions such as the South-West which, to some extent, are already falling behind the rest of the country.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that while it may be necessary, to overcome an Economic Crisis, to make provision that contracts freely entered into shall not be enforceable - and I think that the Government were right to do this - it is desirable that that state of affairs should cease as soon as possible?

I cannot understand why we should be in the position where we adopt basically, though not entirely, the policies with which the Conservative Party at each stage of an Economic Crisis has attempted to solve the problem.

In a nutshell, this illustrates why Economic Crisis is hitting us now.

If this is the Government's first step in trying to solve an Economic Crisis, what will the next step be?

We want to know what immediate action the Government intend to take to rescue hill and upland farming from the Economic Crisis imposed by the Socialists.

The last point which leads me to the conclusion that the timing is very bad, and most unacceptable in a time of Economic Crisis, for the Government to propose to establish a new county borough, is the expense not only in absolute terms in the cost of local government administration but in the probability that county boroughs with a population of 100,000 will not continue as all-purpose authorities when the Royal Commission's recommendations have been given effect.

what steps he is taking, in view of the Economic Crisis, to reduce this expenditure; and if he will make a statement.

It is nothing more than a piece of window-dressing, designed simply to give the impression to the country that Her Majesty's Government are going to tackle every aspect of the Economic Crisis, by every means at their disposal.

I have said that I believe that this Order is needless, unless the Government believe that the Economic Crisis is insoluble.

By that factual statement the Postmaster-General revealed quite plainly that these charges had nothing to do with the Economic Crisis into which the Government had led the country.

Therefore, in the midst of a so-called Economic Crisis, the Prime Minister was using this opportunity to shuffle about telephone charges, which would in the end mean no net increase to Post Office revenue.

Either he has to defend these charges on the ground that they were needed to put the Post Office finances right, in which case he convicts his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister of double talk on 20th July, or he has to say that they were made necessary by the Economic Crisis caused by the Government, in which case he will be saying something which is plainly untrue.

What has been done is doubly laudable in view of the nature of the Economic Crisis which has prevailed during the greater part of the past two years.

what is the total estimated cost; 913 and whether he will consider suspending the work in view of the Economic Crisis.

asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what is the nature of the work still continuing at the stable yard at St. James's Palace; what is the total estimated cost; and whether he will consider suspending the work in view of the Economic Crisis.

But if one examines the Economic Crisis of September, 1957, we see that, in the year following, exports did not rise.

While thanking my hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask whether he would not agree that this practice not only causes a loss of revenue to the Post Office but also has an adverse effect on our balance of payments, and that at this time of Economic Crisis this practice by British-based companies is completely irresponsible?

This is not the record of a Government who have faltered or failed to stand up to the Economic Crisis.

1967

41 mentions

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This leads me to my third objection to the Bill - the lunacy of proceeding with the nationalisation of steel at a time when Britain is in the midst of a Dire Economic Crisis and living on borrowed money.

Taking the Supplementary and the original Estimates together, the Government can claim to have provided the maximum possible, within the terms of the Economic Crisis, to correct the tremendous imbalance which existed between the poverty-stricken regions of this country and the more fortunate.

Had the hon. Gentleman been paying attention to what I was saying he would have heard me say that because of the Economic Crisis which the country has faced in the last year or 18 months, it would be unreasonable to expect this of any Government.

If there is an Economic Crisis here, create unemployment.

The Prime Minister then stated in August that it was all right for the Parliamentary Commissioner to be set up and that if any expenditure were incurred, that, too, would be all right, although that was during the midst of an Economic Crisis.

The question of an Economic Crisis has been mentioned.

Is the Prime Minister aware that in his statement on 20th July last on the Economic Crisis he said that one of his measures was his determination to see that the freight liner trains operated at open terminals.

It is no use taking the subsidy calculated for this year because of the Economic Crisis.

Clearly there is advantage for the local authorities when interest rates are high, and certainly, in the last two years, when the rates have been continually high during the period of Economic Crisis, a basic subsidy related directly to interest rates is an advantage.

However, apparently having agreed the expenditure which the local authorities could expect, the Government have decided to cut it because of the Economic Crisis.

There is in this country today a critical attitude towards the Labour Government demanding to know why they are so much like the Tory Government, carrying on Tory ideas, mouthing the same platitudes, but ultimately coming to the same conclusion on the Defence White Paper and deciding that enormous sums of money must be borne on the shoulders of the British taxpayer at a time of Economic Crisis.

Britain is in an Economic Crisis.

We can say quite reasonably that we have produced an effective scheme in conditions of very great difficulty and in conditions of Great Economic Crisis.

If the Tories had been in power, they would also have faced this financial and Economic Crisis and would have had to reduce expenditure somewhere - perhaps on the TSR2, perhaps somewhere else.

In the past, by contrast, reforms, if they were made at all, were devised only after Acute Economic Crisis had been suffered.

What taxes would they increase, or what is their solution to the Economic Crisis?

The right hon. Lady the Minister naturally mentioned the Economic Crisis which, she said, had prevented certain things from happening.

It may be right that at times of Economic Crisis a total wage freeze should be made over the entire country.

The right hon. Gentleman should not calculate on their last four years until the election boom that caused the Economic Crisis, but on what their record was over 13 years.

Mr. Biggs-Davison asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the fact that Selective Employment Tax was introduced as part of the measures to deal with the Economic Crisis, he will give an undertaking that this tax will be withdrawn as soon as he judges restrictive measures can be relaxed.

First there has been the phase of deflation, stagnant growth and rising unemployment which the Chancellor has assured us is now coming to an end, and, secondly, the voluntary self-sacrifice and restraint on the part of the vast majority of trade unions and trade union members during the period of the Economic Crisis.

The coming of the Prices and Incomes policy is not merely something to bridge an Economic Crisis.

or is he really saying that the Present Economic Crisis will be going on for so long that the figure must be kept as low as this?

Will he now look at this matter again; or is he really saying that the Present Economic Crisis will be going on for so long that the figure must be kept as low as this?

When the right hon. Gentleman prophesied that things would be all right we reached 100,000 unemployed in Scotland, after which things went well everywhere else and then we were hit again by yet Another Economic Crisis and the figure went up to 130,000.

Just as we said that there were certain urgent social priorities at home which must be exempted from the full impact of the Economic Crisis, likewise the Government should also have said that their Socialist principles demanded that the same should apply to aspects of their policy and work overseas.

Not to be outdone, in February, the Prime Minister said that the Economic Crisis was over.

The situation tonight reminds me of the Economic Crisis and the defence argument of 1951.

In February, 1965, the Prime Ministerdeclared that the Economic Crisis was now "virtually over".

I say that if by mid-summer of 1968 there is no diminution in unemployment, if there is no evidence of growth and industrial expansion, if the balance of payments has not been corrected, if that is the position by mid-summer, the Economic Crisis will remain but, just as serious, there will be a political crisis.

Then there was an Economic Crisis.

He has correctly described the people who will suffer from Any Economic Crisis.

We saw an industrial battle taking place at a time of Economic Crisis, when we wanted industrial efficiency and increased output.

One would think from the speeches of the Opposition that this was the first occasion on which defence cuts had followed an Economic Crisis.

Let me take the hon. Gentleman back to 1952, without going into whether there was an Economic Crisis or not.

I think that it will particularly help those sections of the community who may have to pay some of the economic prices resulting from the Economic Crisis which we have faced in recent months.

The public would also feel that this is a time for all people, during a period of Economic Crisis, freeze, squeeze and so on, to contain any impulses towards striking that they may have.

I want people to understand and appreciate the workings of Parliament, because already in the present 109 Economic Crisis certain people in certain sections of the community are saying that they have no time for Parliament or that Parliament should neet only once a year.

I want people to understand and appreciate the workings of Parliament, because already in the Present Economic Crisis certain people in certain sections of the community are saying that they have no time for Parliament or that Parliament should neet only once a year.

We a -e asked to tighten our belts, and Davis forecasts that before we are through This Economic Crisis there may be higher taxes, higher Purchase Tax, higher taxes on tobacco and drink, and higher Income Tax, hire purchase controls, with restrictions on overdrafts, and so on.

If we can strengthen the economy, we will be able to afford more, and I am very worried whether the Present Economic Crisis will mean that we will not be able to spend sufficient to keep the expanding educational building programme which the country needs.

1968

48 mentions

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Would my right hon. Friend agree that the reintroduction of prescription charges at a higher rate than before, with initially no greater exclusions than before, in the middle of the winter months, appears to run contrary to Government assurances that the weaker sections of the community would be protected from the full blast of the Economic Crisis?

Therefore, we have a Government, with an Economic Crisis at hand, who intend to borrow £70 million, and the Minister gives no explanation where the money is to come from.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor asked the Minister of Transport if, in view of the Economic Crisis, she will withdraw the Transport Bill.

There is a further level of debate which arises from the Economic Crisis and the Government's measures.

Have our principles altered because of This Economic Crisis?

Will the Bill be overtaken in the next few weeks by cuts which are required as a result of the Economic Crisis?

I believe that there is no more important or vital aspect of our present position than the Economic Crisis, and a Supplementary Estimate of the order of £30 million is quite clearly a matter of great significance.

Some of the expenditure which we approved in that Bill, and which is now the subject of Supplementary Estimates, is exactly the same as it was before the Economic Crisis.

Does the hon. Gentleman not realise that if agriculture is to play its part this year in helping to solve Our Economic Crisis, a full statement of the future of agriculture must be made immediately and not in some weeks' time?

greatly assisted the recovery from the 1931 Economic Crisis, if he will now reduce drastically the Bank Rate from 8 per cent.

We have heard this evening that the cuts were dictated by the Treasury and that it would have been impossible for the leaving age to have been raised at the stated date even if there had not been an Economic Crisis.

As I was saying, it took a Major Economic Crisis and devaluation to make the Government see the light.

First, there was the crisis of the paper aircraft which the Defence Secretary thought up and in which he put so much faith - the Anglo-French V.G. Then there were the Economic Crisis of July and, as always happens under Labour, the defence votes took the brunt.

We are approaching the time when we will face the fact that we are in a financial and Economic Crisis, but there has been no sign of it in this debate.

I am sure that the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West would be far too wise, if he were Minister, to precipitate Another Economic Crisis by introducing a big defence budget which would make the gnomes of Zurich wonder if perhaps they would have been better off under a Labour Government.

Second, and in the shadow of the Economic Crisis, it is cheaper for the community.

I was very glad that on the whole he avoided the rather tedious forms of political attack which we have heard several times on the causation of the Present Economic Crisis.

Therefore, it is important that the House and people outside should realise that these heavy imposts are not necessitated solely by an Economic Crisis, by whoever caused, and they are not the inevitable result of world economic disturbances or a flurry in the gold market; they are in substantial measure the bill which has to be paid for the Government's failure to restrain their own expenditure.

As I say, this has happened each year, and after 12 or 18 months or two years we hit an Economic Crisis.

We in Britain are facing a critical economic situation due to a number of different factors, and I think that anyone who suggests that the Economic Crisis is simply due to one overwhelming factor is naive and is misleading people.

Yet here is a nation in the middle of an Economic Crisis, spending money like a man with no arms.

Is this the action of a Government facing an Economic Crisis?

Mr. Marten asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in the light of the Recent Economic Crisis, he will give a direction to all Government Departments to publish proposals for improving their control of Departmental public expenditure.

They did not avert Economic Crisis after economic crisis, culminating in the severest crisis of 1964.

I thought that the hon. Gentleman would tell us that the Economic Crisis would be a continuing element of this Government's policy and that is why these powers should be timeless.

To pander to the desire for personal gain without service is demoralising to society at any time, and particularly at this time of Economic Crisis, when appeals are made from almost all sides of the House to the nation for greater productivity and responsible citizenship.

In times of Economic Crisis, like the present, that in itself is no reason to exclude from our consideration subjects like the one dealt with by the new Clause.

There was the certainty of Economic Crisis that year and the Budget was only explicable in terms of the coming General Election.

Another question which I asked, and which was regarded as indecent, was whether, in view of the plight of the small farmer, both sides of the House could not agree to landlords fixing a moratorium in rents during the Economic Crisis.

I know that it is too late to do it this year, but when the Economic Crisis begins to ease I hope that one of the first things the Government will do will be to restore the supply of school milk and enable secondary school children once again to get their bottles of milk as they did before we made these cuts in an attempt to appease the international bankers.

In view of the extremely small number of licences which had to be refused during two years of Economic Crisis, how can the Minister possibly justify continuing with these controls over the next few years when, as all his colleagues tell us, we shall have a period of economic recovery?

The crucial point was put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames, that it is in the next two years when the savings are necessary, and after that, if the Government's plans come off and the economy is more secure, the Economic Crisis will be over.

I recognise the problems attendant upon Economic Crisis and I understand the Treasury's argument, but it would still be possible, in certain circumstances, for the Government of the day to say, "We are sorry, but we cannot fulfil the recommendations at this stage.

The Times verdict on that is as follows:It cannot be justified by sematic distinctions between an Economic Crisis and a touch on the tiller.

You rightly drew the attention of my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Webster), Mr. Deputy Speaker, to the fact that he might have been wandering out of order when he said that the last time that he and I sat on this bench on an occasion like this there was Another Economic Crisis.

On this occasion, we shall collectively be asked to bear the responsibility for at least one-tenth of the economic decisions made last week by the Group of Ten, and I do not think for a moment that it would be wise either for the Opposition to disclaim responsibility, for the country now has a long perspective of Economic Crisis and failure stretching back through many Governments, many balance of payments gaps, many import sprees and export failures, many meetings of the I.M.F. and the Group of Ten, of Finance Ministers and central bank governors, or for the Government to endeavour, as they seem to have done today, to write into this situation the small print of party advantage, for the country is sick and tired of the stereotyped clichés of party economic analysis.

Mr. Arthur Lewis asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the Present Economic Crisis and the expenditure involved in the Government's plans for reform of the House of Lords, he will now postpone his proposals for such reform.

He told me that he could not see his way to vote for the Conservative again because of their irresponsible attitude during the Economic Crisis.

We are supposed to be discussing emergency measures to deal with an Economic Crisis that brought home the Chancellor from Bonn only last Friday flying the S.O.S. flag.

There are two fundamental points which face a country, in the midst of an Economic Crisis as much as at any other time.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it may seem to be odd to some that we should be discussing how to give away substantial resources at a time when we are massive borrowers on our own account and are in the grip of Serious Economic Crisis.

There was a political and Economic Crisis facing the Government.

Such an increase Order was introduced, appropriately enough, just after Another Economic Crisis - the devaluation crisis in 1967.

In the light of the Economic Crisis, what do they want?

Mrs. René e Short asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether, in view of the Recent Economic Crisis, he will cease to subsidise "Britain in Europe" and other organisations of this type supporting the Common Market.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether, in view of the Recent Economic Crisis, he will cease to subsidise "Britain in Europe" and other organisations of this type supporting the Common Market.

There is not simply an Economic Crisis, there is an institutional crisis, and I suggest to the Leader of the House that he is putting at risk the prime institution, namely, the House of Commons, if at this time he dismisses it, when ordinary people feel that it should be here debating their problems.

At that point we had not had the July, 1966 Economic Crisis.

1969

eight mentions

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That would increase the Government's terrible problems in trying to convince the nation that we do face an Economic Crisis and that we must all make an effort to overcome it.

We did not look to the policy for sudden dramatic effects, but in the Economic Crisis in 1966, and devaluation in 1967, we rightly decided to use the policy for immediate short-term purposes.

It seems wrong for a public Corporation owned and backed by the Government to make continual references to Government interference and pessimistic statements about doing something or not being allowed to do something else, the Economic Crisis and the continuation of the overseas travel allowance, described as "a travesty of justice to B.E.A.".

It is true that relying heavily upon taxation means that the Health Service is inevitably at risk during an Economic Crisis.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that last year - a year allegedly of Economic Crisis - the gross export of capital from this country at £621 million was the highest in any single year since the war and that the trend has continued in the first quarter of 1969?

One is that there is an Economic Crisis for radio, and the other is that the regional orchestras are at risk.

The case for a prices and incomes policy has been seriously damaged by the fact that the Government introduced it initially as a voluntary policy but were pushed into operating it as a statutory one in a period of Economic Crisis.

It was written by a group of left-wing Members of Parliament who outlined in a pamphlet 'Keeping Left' their remedy for the same sort of Economic Crisis which plagued Britain then as plagues us now.

1970

14 mentions

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The only way to explain it - I am prepared to accept what the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) said about the Minister having done his best but having been overruled by the Chancellor of the Exchequer - was the fact that we were in the midst of a Major Economic Crisis, that we were borrowing money from the I.M.F. and that the I.M.F. was making quarterly examinations of our books.

Apparently hon. Members are unaware that there was an Economic Crisis.

There was an Economic Crisis at that time, and many people were worried about the possible effect upon foreign confidence and sterling of going ahead with nationalisation at that time, and the industry knew this.

The right hon. Gentleman will have studied enough economic affairs in the last 24 hours to know that the Economic Crisis is not self-made by those on this side of the House.

One is bound to ask, therefore, whether it is the purpose of Her Majesty's Government to precipitate Economic Crisis and collapse in Lesotho in order to attain certain political objectives?

The Prime Minister has already said that the Economic Crisis which was spoken about so freely during the election campaign is unlikely to exist for much longer.

Was it helpful to our negotiating position with the Six for the Prime Minister, during the General Election, to give the impression that this country was facing a Grave Economic Crisis?

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the dilemma in which the Government have been placed by this decision, because in arguing at Luxembourg that our economy was on a sound and stable basis they were giving evidence which was contrary to the arguments of the Prime Minister during the election campaign that we were running into an Economic Crisis?

He asked whether Britain washeading for a Serious Economic Crisis".

He asked whether Britain washeading for a serious Economic Crisis".

Whether we have an Economic Crisis or not is not relevant now that the election is over and the Government have taken as much advantage as they can from the situation which they were able to exploit.

The debate opened with a very interesting exchange in which my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) disposed entirely of the idea that there was an Economic Crisis and that this was the reason the Conservative Party won the election.

These cuts are not being made in a situation in which taxation is being increased across the board because of an Economic Crisis.

a year and there is unfortunately very little evidence of any industrialised country which has reached this sort of level of wage inflation being able to return to more normal rates of wage inflation without a Serious Economic Crisis.

1971

10 mentions

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Having been concerned with doctors' and dentists' pay both as a Treasury Minister and as Minister of Health, it is crystal clear to me that in the context of the present awards the only reason for turning them down can be the threat of an Economic Crisis.

Does that mean, taken together with the reported meeting with the T.U.C., that the Prime Minister is now recognising that there is a Serious Economic Crisis and that he is prepared to consider a voluntary incomes policy?

The Leader of the Opposition when Prime Minister, on one of the many occasions when he made a statement about an Economic Crisis, attempted to set a limit to the size of the Civil Service.

There is a temptation to take a cynical approach and to say that one reason successive Ministers have not taken that step is that it would be difficult, once Sadlers Wells were recognised as a national opera, to send it up the spout in an Economic Crisis.

In the time of high unemployment arising from the Economic Crisis after the Labour Government of 1929–31, Mr. Baldwin instituted his inquiries and, before the outbreak of the last war, our regional policy was started by the Conservative Government of the day.

This will present problems to Pakistan, and is sympathetic of the Economic Crisis it faces.

When we tried to introduce one, it was against the background of an Economic Crisis.

This is not just a Franco-German problem, either - now all the Community countries are out of line with one another as a result of the differing exchange rate adjustments which have been made since the Economic Crisis measures which were adopted by the United States on 15th August.

It is true that many of us disagreed with the withdrawal of milk from secondary school children, but we know that we were facing an Economic Crisis and that - wrongly in my opinion and that of many others - the decision was made that sacrifices should be made across theboard.

The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) spoke of a crisis of confidence, the present Economic Crisis, as he called it, and the terrible state of the economy.

1972

eight mentions

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I have always complained that, because we introduced an incomes policy at the time of an Economic Crisis, it became the creature of the crisis.

In defence of a less than thread bare record, the Chancellor, in winding up, artfully extracted some highly selective quotations from the pre-Budget memorandum from the Child Poverty Action Group entitled "One Nation: the Conservatives' record since June, 1970", about the Labour Government's record at a time of Economic Crisis.

All that we seek is an opportunity, during a period of Economic Crisis which affects Scotland more seriously than anywhere else in the United Kingdom, for people who have to pay savage increases from £50 to £250 to be able to phase them in five payments over four years, rather than cutting the period by half and allowing them just two years in which to meet what are extortionate increases.

What I am concerned about is that, whether there was an Economic Crisis at that time or not and whether or not ministerial salaries should have been cut, injustice was done by the Lawrence Committee, and we now have a chance to put it right: let us put it right.

As regards the raising of the school leaving age, I remind the right hon. Gentleman that it was his own Government, when he was Secretary of State, which postponed the raising of the school leaving age because of the Economic Crisis at the time.

I do not mean by an incomes policy a creature that is created suddenly to ward off an Economic Crisis; that is not an incomes policy at all.

Will he bear in mind that many employers might use the Present Economic Crisis as yet another excuse for not implementing the Act?

I have been disappointed in the past by the fact we used a prices and incomes policy to deal with an Economic Crisis but not to rectify injustice.

1973

29 mentions

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In the Economic Crisis into which the Government have forced us, does that mean that any increase to them will be frozen in stage 2 and that, despite their negotiations lasting for three years without any sign of daylight, when, if they are lucky next week, they reach an agreement with the management side, they are to be told that the three years must be extended to the end of phase 2, the end of phase 3 or the end of some other phase?

They have opened up kilns which have been cold for years and got going on the drive, but within a short space of time it has been stop again because of an Economic Crisis, inflation, and so on.

especially regrets the initial cuts, followed by belated and unplanned increases, which together with its taxation, social and industrial policies have led to the Present Economic Crisis; and further deplores priorities in Command Paper No.

Before I call the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to move the motion, may I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. Harold Wilson) and his right hon. and hon. Friends, in line 1, leave out from 'House' to end, and add:whilst paying tribute to the work of the Expenditure Committee and its Sub-Committees, condemns the Government's public expenditure policy since 18th June 1970; especially regrets the initial cuts, followed by belated and unplanned increases, which together with its taxation, social and industrial policies have led to the Present Economic Crisis; and further deplores priorities in Command Paper No.

I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:whilst paying tribute to the work of the Expenditure Committee and its Sub-Committees, condemns the Government's public expenditure policy since 18th June 1970; especially regrets the initial cuts, followed by belated and unplanned increases, which together with its taxation, social and industrial policies have led to the Present Economic Crisis; and further deplores priorities in Command Paper No.

The result of all this, together with the social policy concerning rents, pensions and social security, as well as industrial policy, has, not surprisingly, brought the present Government and the country to a Massive Economic Crisis.

I believe that my right hon. Friend deserves special support because, in contrast to the conduct of the Labour Government in Their Economic Crisis of 1968 when retrenchment in the educational world was their theme, my right hon. Friend has in a difficult economic crisis managed to get extra resources for this vital service.

the Economic Crisis, inflation and the prices and incomes policy are now.

Theproblem is now; the Economic Crisis, inflation and the prices and incomes policy are now.

I therefore ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote against the Budget and its tax policies by voting against one resolution, not only because in the midst of an Economic Crisis it maintains the present level of surtax, but because it continues previous Budget policy and persists in giving large real increases in income to the wrong people.

I have said on more than one occasion that a Socialist Government's proposals on unemployment would be to some extent limited because of the Major Economic Crisis with which we are faced.

They have used the deepening Economic Crisis to weaken the democratic control of the economy.

We were then passing through an Economic Crisis, and for the present the political scene seems calmer.

The Government have a Serious Economic Crisis on their hands.

Till we as politicians seize the reality of the situation and tell the people ofthis country that we will not promise them what we cannot give, that we can not for ever be seeking votes, seeking to win the next general election by promising things far beyond our competence or the opportunities which may present themselves, we cannot cure Our Economic Crisis.

Till we as politicians seize the reality of the situation and tell the people ofthis country that we will not promise them what we cannot give, that we can not for ever be seeking votes, seeking to win the next general election by promising things far beyond our competence or the opportunities which may present themselves, we cannot cure our Economic Crisis.

In view of the Economic Crisis and the demands made in certain Conservative quarters for cuts in Government spending in the public sector, it would be tragic if such cuts were made at a time when there was an increase in arms spending.

He declared:We think we have a responsibility to the national effort in this time of Economic Crisis.

The Economic Crisis at the end of 1964 has emphasised our dependence upon Europe.

Initially, it is important to make it abundantly clear and to put it on record that, whatever the political pundits think about the Economic Crisis surrounding us, the mining industry's problem is part of the overall problem but is not the root cause of the crisis.

I do not know how I would explain that I was solemnly discussing the landscape of New Palace Yard during a raging Economic Crisis and a major resources shortage.

The origins of the Present Economic Crisis, brought on by the oil shortage, can be traced to the Labour Government's decision in 1967 to withdraw from the Gulf.

We are facing an Economic Crisis involving a fundamental change in economic strategy, and even if it is desirable - which we do not accept - is this the time to kick our traditional trading partners in the teeth?

There is also the deeper and more Fundamental Economic Crisis arising both from world factors and from domestic policies and attitudes, a crisis which in its turn is aggravated by the new oil threat.

It is that the Economic Crisis justifies their measures, that the oil crisis has complicated the situation, that industrial disputes have made necessary the measures announced by the Prime Minister, and that the whole nation should now, in duty bound, support the Government.

If that is the basis upon which the Government pursue their duty to all the people of this country, it is little wonder that they invoke so small a response at this time of Grave Economic Crisis.

I am confident that they will brilliantly seek to overcome the difficulties and that in spite of the difficulties, somehow or other the meals will get through and the home helps will arrive, and that we shall not be faced with the problem of putting elderly people into geriatric wards of hospitals merely because the Economic Crisis does not permit the community to do its job.

That was the situation that existed even before the Economic Crisis, and the Opposition warned time and again about the costs.

Unfortunately, the right hon. Gentleman's Department is carrying one of the most serious and severe burdens of the Present Economic Crisis.

1974

75 mentions

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On one thing both sides of the House seem agreed - that the country is facing the most Serious Economic Crisis since the war.

Is he aware that the gap in levels of unemployment between the North and the South will widen as a result of the Economic Crisis and that, therefore, every kind of regional incentive, including REP, is desperately needed?

The House has heard from time to time of suggestions by the TUC for solving the Present Economic Crisis.

But if cuts have to be made - and I believe that everyone will agree that in the Present Grave Economic Crisis, all services must face cuts - education, like other social and welfare services, will have to take its share.

I agree with the hon. Member for Ealing, North that this debate is taking place against a background of Serious Economic Crisis, and no one can blink that fact.

I agree with the hon. Member for Ealing, North that this debate is taking place against a background of serious Economic Crisis, and no one can blink that fact.

But the amendment seeks to criticise the Government for failing to meet the needs of the Serious Economic Crisis facing the nation.

5519) in conjunction with the statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 17th December 1973 for failing to meet the needs of the Serious Economic Crisis facing the nation; and particularly deplores the concentration on cuts in public services whilst failing to reverse the taxation and industrial policies that have done so much to create the present emergency".

In our amendment we condemn the White Paper in conjunction with the cuts of 17th December for failing to deal with the Serious Economic Crisis facing the nation.

We are facing the most difficult, probably the worst, Economic Crisis that has confronted this country since the end of the war.

It is that factor, and not the mine workers' dispute, which is the endemic element in Our Economic Crisis.

I have observed with some regret that so far the debate has tended to follow the common form of debates on the Economic Crisis.

At a time of Economic Crisis it is up to the Opposition to make sure that the nation's needs, and not a party's needs, are put first.

We have come to Parliament to talk about the Economic Crisis.

At the same time you encourage your Ministers and the mass media to blame the miners for the Economic Crisis - the gravest since the war - which has been brought about primarily by your determination to pursue the wrong political, industrial and economic policies.

Historically, if we look back we find that it is Economic Crisis and not easygoing affluence which has always been the midwife of greater social equality.

At the same time, I am bound to add - and everyone in the House I think will agree with me here - that we are facing up to this challenge and making decisions on priority against a background of the most severe Economic Crisis that this country has ever known in peacetime, a record balance of payments deficit, record inflation and totally unnecessary damage inflicted on our economy by the three-day week.

The total failure of "Wales: The Way Ahead" to appreciate the significance of the Economic Crisis in Wales has been shown by research paper No.

Does he agree that the large class of people who will lose this right are not those who caused the Economic Crisis?

Far from helping to solve Our Economic Crisis, particularly the problem of inflation, they are making the position worse.

However, the pace at which we can fulfil those objectives must depend upon the rate of progress that we make in tackling the Economic Crisis that we have inherited.

At a time when we are supposed to be in a Serious Economic Crisis, when engineering workers, London teachers and NALGO workers are being told that there is no money in the country, there is £50 million for the Chatsworth Estate Trustees to spend on a yachting marina.

It may be that the present pension proposals originated in the glint of one person's eye, but I think probably not, because at a time of Economic Crisis the Government realised that they had to honour the pledges that they had made to the electorate just a few weeks ago.

In my view, we cannot afford this expenditure at a time of Economic Crisis, especially when we have more urgent priorities such as schools and houses to spend money on.

But I do not accept what is said by an Opposition who last week were telling us to spend tens of millions of pounds subsidisingpeople who use night storage heaters and are now asking us to spend millions more on general improvement areas and housing action areas, at a time when we face a Grave Economic Crisis.

Against the Impending Economic Crisis and world recession, will not more private firms be asking for Government help, and is not the choice for the people between mass unemployment resulting from Tory policy and full employment resulting from the Government's policy?

I fear that we are approaching a Serious Economic Crisis.

The system would be of help in deciding the priorities of the plans of other Departments and possibly at times of Economic Crisis.

If we are to tackle the Present Economic Crisis with the urgency it deserves, the first essential is for the British people to be told the grim facts about the revolution of falling standards and expectations we now face.

He might also have been puzzled by the general hilarity and frivolity at a time when this country is facing an Acute Economic Crisis.

The truth is that we face the Worst Economic Crisis since the war.

Those newspaper headlines, in the context of the Worst Economic Crisis since the war and the Chancellor's statement, have all the sniff and whiff of Weimar about them.

I think that we all agree that the debate is being conducted against the background of the most Serious Economic Crisis that the Western world has faced, certainly since the end of the Second World War.

I think that we all agree that the debate is being conducted against the background of the most serious Economic Crisis that the Western world has faced, certainly since the end of the Second World War.

The first is that what underlies Our Economic Crisis, if it be a crisis, is a social crisis.

The truth is that we shall see more and more cars on our roads, despite the fact that we are passing through an Economic Crisis which could well mean that our standard of living remains static for the next two or three years.

I realise that we have a Serious Economic Crisis to deal with but, as the Government's policy is mild reflation - I think that is the right policy - an effici-ent transport policy is essential to improve our growth rate.

"The Economic Crisis Britain faces is the gravest since the war".

As I was saying, when I addressed the TUC on 5th September - and this is a test of what the right hon. Gentleman now calls "honesty in politics" and involves what one says to one's friends not what one says about people behind their backs- I said:I have said that there is no disagreement among the main parties about the gravity of This Economic Crisis.

Much has been made by right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House about the Great Economic Crisis.

Much has been made by right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House about the great Economic Crisis.

During the election campaign and in opening the debate on the Address the Prime Minister said that the Economic Crisis that Britain faces is the gravest since the war.

The debate over the past five days has demonstrated a general acceptance of the view that we face a Grave Economic Crisis.

The debate over the past five days has demonstrated a general acceptance of the view that we face a grave Economic Crisis.

When the hon. Gentleman came to suggest what should be done to get us out of what he called the pressing Economic Crisis, the only suggestion he could put forward was that the Government should get off industry's back.

Second, I want to comment on the Economic Crisis facing the country which has not, in my view, had nearly sufficient attention either in the debate or in the election.

I turn now to the second topic I wish to discuss - the Economic Crisis facing Britain and the social dangers which flow from it.

The truth is that at a time of Economic Crisis, when it is going to be much more difficult to achieve our material goals, we should spend more, not less, on the arts.

I wish him well if he is to manage to indulge in this exercise because, as other hon. Members have said tonight, in the period we shall have to go through in the next few years - I do not think we shall get out of This Economic Crisis quite as easily and as quickly as some of us hope - we shall experience some dismal dark passages.

That will contribute to a feeling of injustice, which is not the right atmosphere within which to tackle the Economic Crisis.

First, I doubt whether the Budget is fierce enough to bring home to ordinary people the depth of the Economic Crisis.

My second reason for regretting the way in which the position has been handled is that we have not fully brought home to the majority of people the exact nature of the Economic Crisis.

It is a platitude to say that we are in an Economic Crisis.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster did not pull his punches in his description of the Economic Crisis facing us and the world as a whole.

Is it not right to consider that the correct approach is to gear local government spending, until we get over Our Present Economic Crisis, to increases in the retail price index?

At a time of Economic Crisis and budgets, we seem to be preoccupied with the state of business, which is a principal concern of government.

Many have said to me that if all the rest of the community worked as consistently and energetically as the self-employed - motivated, of course, by their concern for their own enterprises - probably we should not be facing an Economic Crisis at all.

We are all extremely concerned at the Economic Crisis facing the country and the whole of the Western world.

In the most Difficult Economic Crisis since the war, the Government have acted.

The Conservative Secretary of State in 1973-74 and the then Navy Minister spelt it out clearly in their debates that in a time of Economic Crisis the defence burden must be cut.

The Economic Crisis, as it is now called, will, I fear, be nothing when compared with the economic hurricane which will blow across Western Europe, and notably across these islands, in the coming months.

I realise that we are in a Grave Economic Crisis.

I fear that the hon. Member for Woolwich, East has not fully grasped the fact that we are in the middle of a Grave Economic Crisis and that no local authority service can be regarded as sacrosanct in the difficult months ahead.

It is ironic that this debate has been cut to one day to allow for a debate on the Economic Crisis.

We are now facing an Economic Crisis which is fraught with great political potential.

Yet, I cannot help wondering whether the Secretary of State's proposals are relevant to the Economic Crisis through which we are going.

I thought that we were supposed to be in the middle of an Economic Crisis.

Unfortunately, this is not the first debate on Second Reading of a Finance Bill that has been conducted during a period of Acute Economic Crisis.

There seems to be little dispute about the facts of the Economic Crisis.

I believe that they have to be accommodated in changes in our industrial system which will enable all of those in industry to exercise a responsible attitude in the Economic Crisis we now face.

In 1951, when the Economic Crisis, by common consent, was infinitely less grave than our crisis today, the then Prime Minister announced cuts in ministerial salaries.

In view of the need for regular monitoring of the economic situation and the fact that the Secretary of State for Employment woefully failed to deal with the essential basis of the Current Economic Crisis last night, when, also, the Prime Minister was not here, would the right hon. Gentleman arrange for an early debate on the economy again in January?

We had a full debateon the economy yesterday, in which many excellent speeches from both sides of the House were made, but no speaker in that debate put forward positive solutions for overcoming the Economic Crisis.

I am not alone in suspecting that this disgracefully incompetent Government are inviting Parliament to take three weeks' leave so that Ministers can turn their backs for that period on the looming Economic Crisis.

I am deeply aware of the problems of the Present Economic Crisis.

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Will he also confirm that, in view of the Serious Economic Crisis, the time has now come for the Government to demand sacrifices from every section of the community, except the lowest paid - and the bigger the income the bigger the sacrifice?

If something is not done for the long-distant future, there will be a much more Serious Economic Crisis and catastrophe than even the present Government have been able to devise.

Will not the hon. Gentleman realise that the country faces an Economic Crisis because of the oil situation and that unless the Department sets an example and takes firm action we shall not save as much oil as we otherwise would?

This is doubly serious when 368 the information concerns the Government's sole policy for tackling the Worst Economic Crisis for 40 years.

As the House adjourned for the Christmas Recess on the eve of what was obviously a growing Economic Crisis, is it not natural that my right hon. and hon. Friends and the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) who seems for some reason not to be here today - [Interruption.

Will he kindly tell us what he did in the Christmas Recess to deal with the Economic Crisis?

It must be clear to the hon. Gentleman that this would be contrary not only to what the Crawford Report suggests but to general Government policy, for if the burden of cuts in an Economic Crisis were to fall on regional expenditure and on development in the development areas, which Governments have encouraged over the years, this would be clearly contrary to Government policy.

When the Secretary of State tells me that we are in an Economic Crisis and that education must bear its share, I reply that the education service should stand up for itself and get as big a share of national resources as possible, because it is the biggest national resource that we have, in today's society more important than ever.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that while the country is facing a Serious Economic Crisis the Government must take decisive measures to solve it?

However, is my right hon. Friend aware that I believe he has given the absolute maximum possible in view of the Grave Economic Crisis and the minimum possible to preserve any hope for the economic viability of the BBC?

As my hon. Friends have said, surely it is most important, if we are in a Grave Economic Crisis - which we all believe we are, a crisis so grave that most people are unaware of its full dimensions; indeed it is crucial - that we get the full impact home to them instead of this cushioning in so many directions on these key items which the public see blazoned before them in supermarkets, which lulls them into a false sense of the nature of the crisis.

The Opposition accept that at a time of Economic Crisis, economic and social priorities must vie with each other.

Coming back to even later peacetime England, when the Labour Government came to power in 1964 after 13 years in Opposition, we came back to power in the middle of what was then the Worst Economic Crisis there had been since the immediate post-war years, and yet again precisely at that time, for the first time, a Minister responsible for the arts was appointed.

Even if we have to accept a short delay because of the Economic Crisis, I hope that the Minister will ensure that a fair share of national funds will be made available for rail improvements, based on the Picc-Vic scheme, so that Manchester may begin to make up some of the ground it has lost over the long years of planning and discussion.

Let me remind hon. Members of this, for example:We are engaged in industries which are particularly vulnerable in the Present Economic Crisis and general uncertainty … However, I think that it has been too easy to overlook some of the benefits which I believe will materialise in the future … I am confident that the acquisition of Clarksons Holidays and the recent addition of Horizon should, together with our airline, put us in a unique position to turn the inclusive holiday business back into profitability.

I do not see it as a concession or a hand-out but as an absolute right, despite the Economic Crisis - and perhaps because of inflation and concern for the elderly.

Is this country really in an Economic Crisis?

The country is in Grave Economic Crisis.

At a time of Economic Crisis even the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose autumnal euphoria was shattered by the bleak realities of winter, found when the carefully contrived autumnal mists had rolled away that the rate of inflation was not 8·4 per cent.

How we face this grave problem can be a big factor in deciding whether we survive the Economic Crisis.

We all agree that there is an Economic Crisis.

However, what the Government have done in the Present Economic Crisis is to maintain the present level of activity of the Sports Council, which is no mean achievement in this particular year.

Is the Secretary of State aware that local authorities with insufficient land in both urban and rural areas will not be assisted by any cutback in the money available for improving housing stocks, and that in a time of Economic Crisis we should be placing emphasis in that direction rather than moving towards more new building?

The idea - if that were the Under-Secretary's idea - that this problem might be solved in some way by exhortation is in the realms of pious hope, especially at a time when we are in an Economic Crisis.

But all this creates an atmosphere of total paralysis which is reminiscent of the Labour Party's economic thinking in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when elders of the Labour Party were unable to apply their minds to or produce any new ideas for the surging Economic Crisis which then confronted Britain.

This painful and prolonged process is most likely to take place against a background of deepening Economic Crisis, not excluding - I choose my words carefully - a falling away of confidence and, with it.

There are several things that we must do to deal with the Present Economic Crisis.

But let us not forget that the whole industry welcomes the Bill and the measures which the Government are taking in the Present Economic Crisis.

He was able to obtain £100 million from a British Cabinet at a time of Economic Crisis.

The Budget must be viewed against the deepest Economic Crisis that we have seen since the war - a crisis which must be spelt out time and time again so that the understanding of it is not limited to hon. Members, and so that it is fully appreciated by those whom we represent.

When we examine Our Economic Crisis, we see that the effect of inflation on our competitiveness is clear.

We have had 10 years of attempts at achieving an incomes policy and we are still apparently in the kind of Economic Crisis talked about by those who say that an incomes policy is the only econo-mic solution they can find.

My right hon. Friend has done us a service in particular in concentrating our minds, not least in the House but also in the country, on Our Serious Economic Crisis.

Fiscal and monetary measures have been tried in virtually the whole of the post-war period, but we still find ourselves lurching from Economic Crisis to economic crisis.

Is it not incredible that we should be about to spend vast sums of public money on taking over this industry, at a time of Grave Economic Crisis, in ignorance of the background?

It is vitally important that at a time of Economic Crisis the national cake is shared out as fairly as possible.

The fascinating aspect of the Labour Party's approach to Our Present Economic Crisis is the totally contradictory element in its legislative programme.

Does he agree that the Present Economic Crisis is a splendid opportunity to expunge, cancel and totally obliterate any proposal to push a motorway through the Peak District National Park?

In the Economic Crisis, they said that wage inflation was the desperate problem and then did nothing to solve it.

The extent and seriousness of the Economic Crisis facing the country had not come though to the bulk of our people, simply because their real income had risen month by month andyear by year.

We must do so if we are to come through the Present Economic Crisis, which is becoming worse by the minute.

In November 1973, as a result of the Economic Crisis, there had been a general deferment of all capital schemes for a period of three months, which meant a loss for the hospitals in Bury of £80,000 for hospital improvements.

Those measures are essential if we are to meet the Present Economic Crisis.

Why has the Bill been introduced at this point when the country is anxious hear about another subject, namely the Economic Crisis?

If we want to have our priorities right at a time of Economic Crisis when we have not yet got control of inflation, I should have thought that my party above all parties would have said that the major priority here is to protect the families in the most vulnerable section of the community, the poverty area.

We are living through a time of Economic Crisis.

At a time of Grave Economic Crisis that is not a bad record in a period of 15 months.

With the frightening increase in redundancies in Northern Ireland and the consequent hardship for the unemployed and their families, would the right hon. Gentleman urgently convene a meeting of the Northern Ireland Committee so that the Economic Crisis facing the people and industry there may be debated, even though he may not get unanimous consent for the calling of such a meeting?

It will be seen as a futile, irritating irrelevance in face of the Grave Economic Crisis that faces our nation.

It did not strike the note one would expect at a time of Economic Crisis.

I repeat that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has already announced measures to the House which, despite Our Economic Crisis, will give assistance to those who really need it.

We all agree that the debate is taking place against the back-cloth of the Worst Economic Crisis our nation has seen since the war.

At this time of Economic Crisis, when it will be tremendously difficult even to maintain standards of vital services, that is the clearest possible affirmation of the priority that the Government give tohelping disabled people to have an active place in the community.

If the Government seek to solve them by capitalist methods - and I trust they will not do so - and abandon their Socialist policies, they will fail to resolve the Economic Crisis and will betray the Labour movement.

We are facing a very Serious Economic Crisis.

Secondly, the Commission says in section 1·5 that overcoming the Economic Crisis requires stern action to hold down the rate ofgrowth of wages and prices to permit a gradual improvement in profits and in the propensity to invest".

It is a credit to Parliament that, despite the Grave Economic Crisis, we can discuss hare coursing and express concern for the hares which are put through a period of terror.

As the Secretary of State knows full well, and has made clear in recent speeches, the country is at the moment in the throes of a Grave Economic Crisis, and a drastic curtailing of public expenditure is clearly necessary.

Now the country faces an Economic Crisis far more serious than any we have faced since the war.

I believe that the Services accept that in time of Great Economic Crisis they should have to share some part of the urgently needed cut-back in Government expenditure, just so far as it ties up with our defence needs.

What direct help can clubs expect from the Government, notwithstanding the Present Economic Crisis?

The Economic Crisis is serious, and it would be a foolhardy person who suggested a time when we might expect to be out of it.

We are now accustomed to talking about the choice of priorities in social services, and with an ever-deepening Economic Crisis it is likely to become more and more a feature of our debates.

We are debating these matters in the context of the severest and most Threatening Economic Crisis the country has ever faced.

In Our Present Economic Crisis it seems that there will not be any more money for education.

Mr. Wigley is it not ironic and rather pathetic that at a time of impending Economic Crisis we should be launching into the production of another white elephant in the shape of the MRCA?

The Economic Crisis of 1931 - which before long, we may think trivial compared with what is coming to us - brought further delays.

That is the horrifying truth of Our Economic Crisis.

Millions of old people had been suffering from an Economic Crisis, and the Labour Government in the period 1964–66 made a real contribution by uplifting the standards of living of those people.

If we pass this Money Resolution of £300 million, are we likely to find it cut to £200 million or £100 million next month under the Economic Crisis proposals?

This may be a small amount compared with the £300 million we have been talking about, but we all know that there is an enormous amount of waste in the public sector, and one of the main ways in which we shall deal with This Economic Crisis is by cutting out that waste in a range of small ways.

Is it right in the Present Economic Crisis for the Treasury to leave entirely uncontrolled the rate at which £100 million of public money is spent?

At a time when uncertainty is the worst thing for confidence in the pound, and when public expenditure is at the heart of Our Economic Crisis, we need to know precisely how much public expenditure is involved this year and how much is involved in subsequent years.

Is my hon. Friend aware that his right hon. Friend the Secretary R of State has a fine record for helping underdeveloped countries, but that there is a national tendency for all Governments to cut overseas aid in times of Economic Crisis?

I concede that at that time the Opposition were in power and that we were talking about the current November 1973 Economic Crisis.

I know that if one sets out plans for the building of a hospital by instalments, whether over five years or 10 years, an Economic Crisis may arise during that period which will mean that we must roll it on.

The final outcome of this appeal procedure shows just how ludicrous the whole procedure is that at a time of Economic Crisis for this country Parliament should be debating a proposal so ludicrous and so irrelevant as the introduction of this complicated panjandrum of law into a matter which is certainly of vital importance to employees and companies but which should be able to be dealt with within the factory or the company, a matter on which Parliament should not he trying to legislate in this appalling and complicated way.

At this time of Grave Economic Crisis it could be described as national sabotage for a Labour Government, or any Government, to propose taking over more of British industry.

- the nature and gravity of the Economic Crisis and the need for economy of public spending.

Remembering that it is upon our resources of North Sea oil that the industrial future of our country will to a great extent depend, remembering the importance that both we on this side and hon. Members opposite attach to the whole concept of nationalisation, and remembering theimportant part that the size of the borrowing requirement which the Bill will entail must play in our present consideration of the Economic Crisis - remembering those three important factors, just three which I have chosen at random, no one can say that we have been dilatory in the Standing Committee.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington said, the important matter is the social priority of the mothers who are waiting for help and wondering what next winter will be like, given the Economic Crisis, the nature of the measures which the Government will have to take and the need for the Bill to give some relief to hard-pressed families.

If the country really wants to see a voluntary policy accepted by large sections of the trade union movement, does my right hon. Friend accept that the Government have to show much more determination on prices and investment, which are equally part of the Economic Crisis affecting the country?

The result of the Economic Crisis that faces this society, like so many others, is that that coverage will be reduced.

Now of all times, in This Great Economic Crisis, is the time to tap the voluntary spirit of the nation.

I believe that perhaps This Economic Crisis will bring the resurgence of the volunteer spirit which for so many generations has given this country the lead in bringing out reforms which have been vitally necessary for our society.

It seems to me that there is no reason why the Government should not, instead of waiting for a few years until this weapon becomes obsolete, take a political initiative—and an economic initiative, in Our Present Economic Crisis, 578 because we should save money—to help in particular the discussions now beng held to outlaw nuclear weapons.

When there is an Economic Crisis and we want to save money, how better can we do so than by asking the postgraduates to test their motivation by backing themselves and taking a loan to pay for their maintenance during their postgraduate course.

With the measures that I have outlined, the potential can be achieved, and some of the rusty 13 million bicycles and some of the equally rusty 18 million cyclistscan play their part in tackling the Economic Crisis and improving the environment in our towns and country.

In particular, has the Treasury expressed concern at the effect on the confidence of our creditors of this misguided spending of public money at a time of Economic Crisis?

The question of Government expenditure is important in the Present Economic Crisis.

In the Present Economic Crisis, it is astonishing that the Government seek to create anomalies of this kind.

Again, this is to ignore the reality of the situation which is that the failed companies - and few will fail except in a period of Grave Economic Crisis - are proprietary companies in which the large shareholdings have in every case been limited to a small number of proprietors who in every case, before the companies have finally broken down, have received large dividends.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that many people who are dependent on supplementary benefit, particularly one-parent families, are becoming increasingly desperate and disillusioned concerning their ability to cope in the Present Economic Crisis?

Given Our Present Economic Crisis that is something that should not be overlooked.

In the Present Economic Crisis, I believe that a Labour Government should be encouraging British manufacturing industries.

By all means help the developing nations - the textile industry has set a very fine example in this direction - but surely not at the expense of the total extinction of a complete industry and of increasing unemployment during the most Serious Economic Crisis we have had since the 1930s.

By all means help the developing nations - the textile industry has set a very fine example in this direction - but surely not at the expense of the total extinction of a complete industry and of increasing unemployment during the most serious Economic Crisis we have had since the 1930s.

One of the difficulties here is that I understand from the Library that no text of the speech made by the Secretary of State for Energy is available, but is the Prime Minister aware that it was reported in the Press, including The Times, a copy of which I have in my hand, that the Secretary of State put forward the view that because of the Economic Crisis Cabinet Ministers who are members of the NEC should be free to express an independent view?

It is true that the country is struggling through a Grave Economic Crisis.

I suggest that the Government should, after immediate consultations with the organisations representing single parents, produce an action programme - a programme which, while recognising the Economic Crisis, concentrates on what it is possible to do now - and a programme which also aims to use voluntary organisation and voluntary effort.

The one-parent families who are here today and those who will read the debate tomorrow want the Government to say "Although the Economic Crisis is such that we cannot help one-parent families now, we recognise the rightness of their case and commit ourselves to the principle of a special cash allowance for one-parent families as soon as possible".

That is why I am not ashamed or embarrassed to argue for a diversion of resources for one-parent families, even at a time of Economic Crisis, because let no one forget that the economic crisis is hitting them harder than it is hitting us.

When we talk about who pays for Our Economic Crisis and for the delay in recommending a substantial income maintenance programme for one-parent families, we must conclude that it is the deprived, the under-privileged, one-parent families, people on low incomes and the homeless who will be called upon to bear the brunt.

All Members of Parliament recognise at this critical moment in our history, in view of Our Economic Crisis, that there is a limit on what we can do.

All Members of Parliament recognise at this critical moment in our history, in view of our Economic Crisis, that there is a limit on what we can do.

Does not my right hon. Friend agree that it is rather anomalous for his Department, at this time of Economic Crisis, to be involved in an increase in public expenditure as well as contributing to an increase in unemployment?

15 or new Clause 5, but it is surely important that where public money is being spent, particularly when the public are so aware of the Economic Crisis, every safeguard should be employed.

The Tories tell us that the actions of the Labour Government during the last 18 months have led to our being in a Serious Economic Crisis, but the hon. Gentleman knows that British industry has been declining because private enterprise has failed us over the past two or three decades.

By pandering to the worst desires of organised labour for Luddism, allowing restrictive practices and overmanning and at the same time making available taxpayers' money to plug the gap between the prices which may be charged and the wages which have to be paid, we exacerbate the Economic Crisis which the Government have brought about.

As an MP, it was his duty to represent the wishes of the people of Pembroke, but it was also his duty to tell people bluntly that in the Current Economic Crisis, money could not be found for every desirable project.

That is what is so frustrating for people such as myself who are deeply worried by the Economic Crisis and find ourselves day after day presented with irrelevancies.

We have to decide which are the real issues of the day, whether they are terrorism, the Economic Crisis, unemployment or anything else.

These problems will not suddenly be cured, and it is no part of the Opposition's case to suggest that in the Present Economic Crisis this position will be quickly changed.

I fear that there is little prospect of more financial resources being made available in the Present Economic Crisis, and we shall have to draw still more on the dedication of those people.

Nevertheless, it seems to me to be a matter of some note that those right hon. Members should be here at this state of our country's fortunes - when most of us are deeply concerned about the Economic Crisis, apart from the other matters which I have mentioned - to talk about this matter.

All this was done at a time of Acute Economic Crisis, when we had massive unemployment and when inflation was hitting the roof.

The tripartite conference on 18th November stems from a decision taken at the meeting of the European Council in July following representations by the European Trade Union Confederation, and is expected to focus on the employment effects of the Present Economic Crisis and the measures which are being or might be taken to deal with these effects.

Mr. Hooley asked the Minister for Overseas Development what policies he is adopting to alleviate the debt problems of developing countries hardest hit by the Current Economic Crisis.

At a time of Grave Economic Crisis, the Labour Government which took office at the end of the war created the National Health Service and the programme of family allowances.

Those are the arguments that I would deploy in theory on any occasion, but at this moment, when the whole nation is supposed to be undergoing a Massive Economic Crisis and we are all expected to respond to the national need, to introduce a Bill of this sort is divisive and wholly wasteful.

I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer that we are in the most Serious Economic Crisis that this country has known since before the Second World War.

But we deplore the fact that the Government basically are not getting to grips with the Economic Crisis and are not dealing with it in a Socialist fashion.

I have heard comment in the past few days that it is ironical for this House at this time of Economic Crisis to be spending a half day debating a Civil List Bill.

funding for the projects, even in this year of economic difficulties, because the whole object of the review of public expenditure as part of the process for tackling the Economic Crisis is that the economic stringency has to apply not only to local authorities but also to the Government themselves, and all public expenditure programmes are under review.

Last summer, at what might be called the height of the Economic Crisis - that may not be strictly true, because under this Government the economic crisis is endemic and permanent - or, at any rate, during one of the peaks of the economic crisis, what was the contribution of the Home Office to solving the crisis?

It is argued that as the Economic Crisis, which the Government have caused is so severe, the cuts they will have to make must include defence on grounds of fairness with other Departments.

We know that the Economic Crisis demands cuts in Government expenditure and an incomes policy, which we support.

One good thing that has come out of the Present Economic Crisis and even out of the threat of direction of pension and insurance funds, which has been canvassed for many months and which has been encouraged today by the hon. Member for Darlington, is that it has been a valuable stimulus to new ideas in the City and it has caused the institutions to look at themselves and see how best to answer these critics.

It is widely agreed that in the Present Economic Crisis the prior claims on our resources must be, first, the balance of payments and, secondly, higher investment.

Thirdly, the policy of standstill does not recognise the duty of local government towards what might be called the casualties of the Economic Crisis.

Traditionally, we have taken the view that the numbers of staff in local authorities and their salary levels are not matters in which the Department of the Environment ought to intervene except, from time to time, when we are struck by an Economic Crisis.

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In recent years we have been going through an Economic Crisis when hon. Members on both sides, whether in Government or Opposition, whether Ministers or otherwise, have been exhorting people to rationalise and to cut down their overheads and expenses and to become more competitive and more efficient.

What the Government have done, what I believe is absolutely essential for overcoming the Worst Economic Crisis that the Western world has had to face since 1945, what we certainly have to secure, and what we promised in our manifestos, is to carry out our policies in concert with the trade union movement.

In This Economic Crisis Conservative Members have been baying for blood and for local authorities to cut back public expenditure.

The first must be, at a time of Economic Crisis, to use all moneys most effectively.

It is difficult, in the middle of an Economic Crisis, to suggest that much more money will be available from the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

First, there is an Economic Crisis, a desperate cash problem, in the industry affecting some sections more than others.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the twin problems of unemployment and rising living costs are bearing heavily upon the working class of this country, which means that they are carrying the greater burden of the Economic Crisis that we face?

The Government are using the Economic Crisis for the most brutal form of planning.

Does the Secretary of State recall that page 1 of the February 1974 Labour Manifesto told people that the Economic Crisis took the form of fear for their jobs and that the Labour Party would change all that?

Already at a time of extreme Economic Crisis, when the fishermen of Aberdeen think that they are going out of business for the loss of £4 million, we plan to spend on a miserable bunch of Assemblies perhaps £100 million, and that does not cover the English assemblies.

We wonder why we have an Economic Crisis, yet we pay someone £52,000 to sit in a rocking-chair for the rest of his life.

I genuinely believe that there should be some structure and programme to inform the public at large that we have commitments which of their nature are both essential and reasonable, and that it should not be argued that defence spending could be cut further when the next blow of the Economic Crisis hits us, as it undoubtedly will at some stage.

The result of the refusal for so long to face the Economic Crisis can now be seen in all sorts of ways.

In the latter half of 1973, the Economic Crisis began and the present Government took two years before they were prepared to recognise the fact.

I know that we shall return to the problem, and that on the next occasion when we run into an Economic Crisis - and it may not be as far away as the time lag between the present crisis and the previous one - we shall return once again to the same fundamental problem.

It is an arrogant and irresponsible act, at this time of Economic Crisis, to produce this Bill - this bit of paper which will cost the taxpayer £1,600 million.

I hope that evenin this gloomy hour of Economic Crisis we can have the imagination and foresight to point the heritage towards a "settled future".

At a time when this country faces the Worst Economic Crisis within memory, there can be no justification for subsidies in this area.

Since then, mainly because of their mismanagement of the economy which is in a dreadful state - though the Minister at the Dispatch Box is not responsible for that - the Government have got themselves in a great mess and have postponed the introduction of the new child benefit until April 1977, producing a succession of excuses, but not the real one--the Economic Crisis.

On the very sensitive matter of unemployment among the races in this country, which the right hon. Gentleman has rightly raised, will he take this opportunity, without making a party political point, to denounce racialists and to declare the abhorrence of and opposition of his party and himself to the advantage being taken of the Current Economic Crisis and the way in which simple-minded people have seen it as an important racial platform?

I have never disputed that an incomes policy is one of the ingredients necessary in order to combat the Economic Crisis.

That is what an Opposition are there for, and no one can blame them for doing so, but one can blame hon. Gentlemen oppositefor shedding crocodile tears on the position of single-parent families and then going to the Dispatch Box week after week and saying "The country is in an Economic Crisis.

We are here concerned with the argument about whether, given the nature of the Economic Crisis, the child benefit scheme should be introduced now, in six months time or in a year's time.

I agree that the motion is so important and that the addition to public expenditure is so important in the Present Economic Crisis that the whole House would wish to take part in the debate.

The Government are faced with a Great Economic Crisis.

Mr. Basnett concluded wth these words: "I end by drawing the contrasts between the sober and disciplined self-sacrifice of the trade union movement in This Economic Crisis with the behaviour of those in industry and the financial sector who control the deployment of funds…" and who "…do not appear to have the same concern for the national interest.

Mr. Basnett concluded wth these words:I end by drawing the contrasts between the sober and disciplined self-sacrifice of the trade union movement in This Economic Crisis with the behaviour of those in industry and the financial sector who control the deployment of funds…and who…do not appear to have the same concern for the national interest.

The authority says "Certainly, but we have no houses or money to spend on building or buying houses, because we are in an Economic Crisis and the Chancellor keeps saying that we must cut back on expenditure".

But, because they can go on mouthing platitudes, such as "We will look after the jobs, boys, once we have these industries in public ownership", without coming to grips with the Economic Crisis which is facing us - a trauma that will intensify within the next few months - they are able to hide behind the generalities without facing the practical realities.

In the middle of the Biggest Economic Crisis that we have ever faced, one would have thought that the fate of the nation depended entirely on whether we should have Sunday opening for pubs.

Even a Minister responsible for the disabled is not free to ignore the intimidating pressures of the Present Economic Crisis.

A great deal could be done, and the Economic Crisis cannot be used as an excuse for fighting off the justifiable pressures imposed by the Act to secure a better and more civilised environment for the British people in respect of these juggernauts which remain a problem to be dealt with by Executive action.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer pretended in his speech that we were going through a financial and monetary problem rather than an Economic Crisis.

We are debating this Bill against the background of the most Serious Economic Crisis we have faced since the war.

The Economic Crisis is threatening, the NHS is having severe financial problems, and morale, on the right hon. Gentleman's own admission, is low.

Today and for most of the next four weeks the Government intend that we shall spend most of our time debating Bills which are totally irrelevant to the Economic Crisis, Bills which will aggravate our severe economic problems and divide and distract thenation, when the Government should be giving a lead for a united national effort.

A further specious argument they have called in aid is the Economic Crisis.

The deficit will have to be carried forward, and the Economic Crisis superimposed on the loss of pay beds is lowering morale in London hospitals.

I would say that it was an insult to the hard-working people of this country to give away £1 million at this time of Economic Crisis when there are so many deserving cases of need.

We are living through a period of Grave Economic Crisis that will no doubt be prolonged.

Although the Minister disputed practically every part of theamendment, he was not prepared to dispute the claim that we are still suffering continuing inflation and a state of Economic Crisis.

I share the view with millions of others that there is still a state of Serious Economic Crisis.

We have an Economic Crisis.

Many people will welcome the fact that, despite protestations from Conservatives, the Government have increased expenditure threefold on mobility for the disabled at a time of Economic Crisis.

Is that still Government policy, or do they believe that in the sort of Economic Crisis that we now face it would be in the nation's interest publicly to abandon such rubbish?

It is a hundredfold more disgraceful to bring such a Bill before Parliament at this time of Economic Crisis.

Pending the much-delayed publication of the review, will the Secretary of State tell the House that the call at the Labour Party Conference for a total freeze on council house rents is totally unrealistic, given the Economic Crisis and the need to reduce indiscriminate subsidies?

When we have a Great Economic Crisis and many other problems to deal with, it is difficult to justify taking up the time of the House with a Bill that apparently will retire compulsorily only about 180 teachers.

The immediate impact of the measures needed to solve Our Economic Crisis may well be to increase unemployment for a time.

An issue related to the Economic Crisis is housing.

What I find depressing and worrying is that the party lines that were drawn up in 1974 are not relaxing at all with the Economic Crisis.

As we discuss this timetable motion, as the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) rightly said, this country faces the Worst Economic Crisis since 1929.

It is absurd that when the country is going through a Great Economic Crisis, we should be wasting our time debating a measure of this sort, which will do nothing to make us richer or stronger.

Why we should go to all this expense when we have an Economic Crisis on our hands I do not know.

Prime Ministers, whether Tory or Labour, whenever this country faces an Economic Crisis, immediately turn to the TUC and invite representatives to come round for beer and sandwiches.

Set in the context of the Present Economic Crisis and the inevitable cuts in public expenditure, this proposal seems to be bureaucracy gone mad.

The one factor that we all have to face at the moment is that we cannot afford to have unnecessary disputes at a time of Economic Crisis or at any other time.

It means that we are playing at constitutional games during a time of Economic Crisis and refusing thereby to tell our people what the facts of the situation are.

I know that Her Majesty is anxious that we should not spend great sums on celebrating this wonderful event during the Present Economic Crisis.

In addition, what will affect the lives of our people most in the coming year is not any piece of legislation from this House but the way in which the Government handle the Economic Crisis.

The fact that successive Oppositions have opposed successive Governments does not mean that at this time of Economic Crisis this is not the right area in which to look for savings.

I only wish that, in a speech lasting almost an hour, he had found five minutes to talk to people like mine on Merseyside - people who have worked 50 weeks this year, who want to work the same next year and who do not ask too much of life - people who are now facing the third Economic Crisis this year.

They are totally irrelevant to what is happening in the country, and that is precisely why today's devolution Bill is so important in the context of the Present Economic Crisis.

The future for the people in those areas can only be bleaker still if in the Present Economic Crisis there is not an attempt to reallocate public sector spending in favour of people who for far too long have suffered from a depressing environment.

Another cynical view put to me suggested that Parliament should have a long reasonable discussion on devolution, recognising that the Bill will never see the light of day anyway, in view of the Economic Crisis.

We are presented with those startling figures at a time of Grave Economic Crisis.

In this time of Economic Crisis, when the Government are up to their ears in debt, and when the Cabinet, we are told, is meeting almost daily to discuss ways in which it can borrow more, it seems utter folly to indulge in any unnecessary travagant, even if we give the Govern-the scheme of devolution outlined in the Government's Bill is monstrously extravagant, even if we give the Government the benefit of the doubt and say that for once they have got their sums right.

At a time of Grave Economic Crisis, when we are living beyond our means on borrowed money, the Government now propose spending £8 million on capital account and about £25 million a year in running costs and employing 2,300 extra civil servants - for what?

Devolution at a time of economic well-being would stand a far better chance of survival than devolution in the middle of an Economic Crisis.

The questions that pre-occupy the minds of our population today are rates, rents, pay freezes and the traumatic effects of Our Economic Crisis.

They have said that it is irrelevant to the Major Economic Crisis facing us.

We are, after all, although the Opposition seem to forget it so often, in the middle of a so-called Economic Crisis - a crisis in which industry clearly is not taking its share of responsibility and is not doing enough to promote exports or productivity or increased pay in order to get us out of the crisis.

Modern history seems to show that the advent of a Labour Government automatically leads to two things: first, an Economic Crisis; secondly, defence cuts.

It is always at times of Economic Crisis that the extreme Left gets its pound of flesh, or in this case, one could say, its £8 billion of flesh.

Almost a quarter of a century ago, also at a time of Serious Economic Crisis, Mr. R. A. Butler, as he then was, introduced his first Budget.

First, I do not believe that the reductions in local authority expenditure are sufficiently large to meet the Economic Crisis facing this country.

1977

22 mentions

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It is very much a matter of the way in which the position is understood by the British public when, as we constantly say, we have a Major Economic Crisis.

If Ministers now say that, despite what has been said by the last Secretary of State, by NATO and by the Select Committee, they still believe that we have a credible defence, but only just, what will happen in the next Economic Crisis?

When people speak to me about the matter, they are puzzled why Parliament, at a time of Grave Economic Crisis, should be bothering with a measure which, so far as they can gather, will lead not to better government but to more government, not to greater unity but to disunity, not to our country playing a stronger rôle in the affairs of Europe but a weaker one.

This unproductive expenditure will fall on Westminster at a time when Britain has an Economic Crisis which according to the Prime Minister will take ten years for industrial recovery.

The Current Economic Crisis gives urgency to the consultative document's claim thatThe prime objective of transport policy is an efficient system that provides good transport facilities at the lowest cost in terms of resources used.

Will he also accept the strong feeling of many of us that this is a totally irrelevant measure that is totally devoid of real interest to the country at large, facing as we do a Grave Economic Crisis?

The first two of his major recommendations for facing up to the Economic Crisis he went on to list as a change in the electoral system and fixed-term parliaments.

One reaches a point at which the Government and the Liberal Party have to acknowledge that the record and consequences of the last Conservative Government have long since ceased to be relevant to the Present Economic Crisis.

I remind the Conservatives of the Economic Crisis of 1972, which hit the then Conservative Government.

That is not enough, particularly in the present climate of Economic Crisis.

Admittedly, the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford could not do that because the announcement had not been made at that stage, but I wish at once to take the opportunity of assuring my right hon. Friend that it would be churlish of hon. Members on either side not to thank him for this advance, especially at a time of Grave Economic Crisis when many Opposition Members, though not necessarily the right hon. Gentleman himself, are demanding massive cuts in public expenditure.

That is no mean figure in the middle of a Major Economic Crisis, though it is much lower than is desirable to meet our needs generally, and those of the construction industry in particular.

We are in an Economic Crisis.

The country is in Economic Crisis, but it would be in a far worse crisis if, through voting out the Bill, the House denied the new town corporations the money that they require to pursue their programmes.

Every debate on domestic matters must reflect the international Economic Crisis of 1973, and housing can be no exception.

We are not complacent, but we are proud that at a time of the most Serious Economic Crisis that this country has faced since the 1930s we have protected the poor, the sick, the unemployed and the pensioners.

Only the Economic Crisis of 1931 stopped that.

We were going through a Serious Economic Crisis.

We all agree that we can no longer spend our way out of an Economic Crisis.

Unemployment in Cornwall and Devon is getting worse, despite hopes in the far South-West that the worst of the Economic Crisis had passed.

So that we might pull through the country's Economic Crisis, the standard of living of the working population has had to take a dip.

But a large number of people do not live in London, and they cannot understand why, at the height of the Economic Crisis, their situation should deteriorate so much more than that of the people who live in London.

1978

16 mentions

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, and, as I have indicated, the other side of the equation was that in 1974 we perhaps did not anticipate the extent of the Economic Crisis that we inherited or the length and depth of the world recession which has been a continuing problem since then.

In spite of constraints which the world recession and the continuing Economic Crisis have imposed, gross public sector housing investment under this Government has consistently remained above the boom year of public expenditure under the last Conservative Government.

The present Government have had to build up basic stability against a background of the Worst Economic Crisis that the Western world has faced since the early 1930s.

The Economic Crisis that ensued as a result of the oil crisis late in 1973 came after the collapse was setting in in the housing market and the property market generally.

The Government accepted such a limit and produced a logical case for introducing it at a time of Economic Crisis.

I believe that that is because economic thinking both in industry and in Government world-wide has still not grasped the nature of the Economic Crisis that has hit the world.

I return to the nature of the Economic Crisis.

The defence cuts made by this Government, cuts which we have been attacking, have been justified by and predicated upon the Economic Crisis resulting from the oil recession.

If the borrowing requirement increases, if there is an Economic Crisis, the Cabinet will be summoned together and these expenditure proposals will be cut.

It took three years this time, and at the end of the three years, despite the enormous incentives given at the top end of the scale, they still found themselves with an Economic Crisis on their hands.

This is a remarkable achievement for a period during which this country has faced the Biggest Economic Crisis for over 40 years.

We have been doing it at a time when the Government, through no fault of their own, but because of a world recession, have faced the Worst Economic Crisis that the Western world has experienced since the 1930s.

These times have been economic in form and largely characterised by an Economic Crisis which has affected us all.

Some of the problems of the 1973 Economic Crisis still beset us and still beset the industrial world.

By the end of 1967, Britain was grappling with the Economic Crisis which followed devaluation of sterling, and the Rhodesian authorities seemed more intransigent than ever.

I totally reject the argument that we should freeze the existing inequalities - the inequalities between disabled people generally and those with decent incomes - because of the Economic Crisis.

1979

16 mentions

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The project to replace the infants school was eventually reinstated in the 1973–74 programme of the local authority, but again Economic Crisis intervened and the project was halted in early 1974.

I have always thought this an unnecessary Bill - the type of Bill that brings some disgrace upon Parliament at a moment when we are supposed to be in something of an Economic Crisis.

We had to tackle that during our first few months in office, against the background of the most Serious Economic Crisis to hit the Western world for 50 years.

I am not ashamed of what we have done against the background of the most Major Economic Crisis that Britain has faced for 50 years.

It is difficult to justify this at a time of Economic Crisis for our nation, and at a time when there is an undisputed need for financial restraint.

We saw that from about 1974 to the time of the Economic Crisis in 1976–77.

The next few years will be difficult and rough, especially as, once again, we move into an Economic Crisis.

It is planting the seeds of a Grave Economic Crisis which will cause hardship and suffering to the whole country, and for that reason we shall be voting against the Government tonight.

In the Economic Crisis which is beginning to face us and which is compounded by the increasing costs and the shortage of crude oil, they will find inevitably that they are forced to make decisions about planning.

In present circumstances it is far easier, I suggest, to plan for reduced spending than to be forced into it by an Economic Crisis and then to comply with IMF instructions.

If the Secretary of State had said "Yes, this is a Bill which is conditioned by the Economic Crisis through which we are passing" - we all understand that, it is bound to be - "numbers in our schools are falling, and we intend to take advantage of that, cuts are to take place and standards will be difficult to maintain", at least he would have carried most of the House with him.

I hope that in future Ministers will not say that they cannot afford the expenditure because of an Economic Crisis, but perhaps we should leave that point for the Committee stage.

Is the right hon. Lady aware of the extreme unpopularity of her Administration as the Economic Crisis deepens and prices and charges go up constantly, to be followed by the further blow to mortgages next year?

Does he realise that the Economic Crisis now hitting the fishing industry in general has brought Aberdeen in particular almost to its knees?

It is not just an Economic Crisis.

Having had the good fortune to draw first place in the ballot, I decided to seek the help of my constituency to identify the greatest problems at a time when we have an Economic Crisis and, to an extent, a social crisis in our land and when our resources are inadequate for all the things that we should like to do.

1980

24 mentions

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and calls on the Leader of the House to provide time for an early debate on the Floor of the House on the deepening Economic Crisis enveloping Scotland.

342, relating to unemployment in Scotland: [That this House notes with alarm and anger the fact that unemployment in Scotland has now risen above 200,000, an increase of almost 40,000 since May 1979, resulting from the doctrinaire policies of the present Government; and calls on the Leader of the House to provide time for an early debate on the Floor of the House on the deepening Economic Crisis enveloping Scotland.

In the few minutes that are allotted to me on the only day that we have for debating Welsh affairs, I wish to address myself to the Economic Crisis that is facing Wales.

He must be reminded of the fact that we warned the British electorate at the last election that the country was facing an Economic Crisis more serious than any that we had faced since the end of the war and that it would take a number of years to begin restoring the health of the economy, which the right hon. Gentleman handed over to us.

As the proposals apply to a period of deepening Economic Crisis and a growing shortage of fuel, those who want to step up the defence budget must take account of the fact that they may well contribute to the critical weakening of our economy which will eventually cancel out any increased military capability.

I make it clear to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that I am prepared to accept this harsh lowering of priorities only for this year of Economic Crisis.

It would be even less acceptable to continue with the present anomaly for the next two or three years, untouched and unchanged, at this time of Economic Crisis.

We should leave the last word on the policy of raising fees for students to the man who said that the increases were mean-minded and selfish, and who went on to say: it is right that at a time of Economic Crisis, when all in Britain are having to make sacrifices, overseas students should carry their part of the burden.

Whatever may be the economic attractions of that thesis, it has no relevance to a world that is in desperate need of assistance and that is facing a looming Economic Crisis.

The result at a time of Economic Crisis is that security has been replaced by uncertainty and confusion.

Yes, it will come down because the Government have a way to solve an Economic Crisis such as this one.

In the Present Economic Crisis, it is important for us to look at ways in which the Government could alleviate the problems of London and other regions.

Does the Leader of the House agree that many people will find it strange that with a deepening Economic Crisis, and unemployment rising, the Government are closing down Parliament until the end of October?

Speeches from hon. Members on both sides of the House have illustrated clearly, and in a variety of ways, that the Economic Crisis is serious.

Whatever test one chooses to apply, whether that of the scale of the problem or that of the novelty of the problem, we face a more Serious Economic Crisis than we have faced since 1945.

In view of the deepening Economic Crisis that now exists in Northern Ireland - with thousands of people unemployed and the social deprivation that is worsening daily - and because of the danger to security as a result of the hunger strike, will he allow a debate at the earliest possible opportunity, next week if possible?

In view of the reports of Cabinet discussions on the rapidly intensifying Economic Crisis facing the nation, will the right hon. Lady tell us when the Chancellor of the Exchequer intends to introduce his next Budget?

It is extraordinary that during the Worst Economic Crisis for years the House apparently is to spend almost the whole of the next Session legalising the production of Mickey Mouse telephones.

That puts an additional burden on employees at a time of Acute Economic Crisis.

They face the Biggest Economic Crisis for half a century, and what do they do?

One of the worst and saddest aspects of the Bill is that, in the face of the Biggest Economic Crisis for 50 years - I believe that it is more serious even than the crisis of the 1930s - the best the Government can do is to extract yet another £1 billion out of the working people to deflate the economy.

One of the worst and saddest aspects of the Bill is that, in the face of the biggest Economic Crisis for 50 years - I believe that it is more serious even than the crisis of the 1930s - the best the Government can do is to extract yet another £1 billion out of the working people to deflate the economy.

That would make some sense of the concept that is developing of using national insurance pension methods as a form of tax to deal with an Economic Crisis.

Those at the lower end of the income scale will contrast their position with that of the higher-paid, who have once again been protected against the Economic Crisis.

1981

27 mentions

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Every hon. Member who has spoken tonight, including the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has agreed that the nation is now afflicted with a Grave Economic Crisis.

The effect on those industries of the Economic Crisis, for which the Government are largely responsible, has meant that the Government are having to pour unprecedented sums into nationalised industries.

In reply to other questions my right hon. Friend stressed the importance that he attaches to investment in the railways and to the way in which we have maintained the investment ceilings at previous levels despite the Economic Crisis.

Mr. Arthur Lewis asked the Prime Minister, in view of the payment of some directors' salaries in excess of £200,000, whether she will make a public appeal to all persons to limit their salaries to £50,000 during the Present Economic Crisis and thus assist the Government's attempts to control inflation.

Is it not a fact that, in the Economic Crisis that this country faces, we cannot afford the current level of defence expenditure and there should be some offset arrangement for the cash excesses this year?

This is not the time to argue against the right hon. and learned Gentleman's interpretation of how the country should react in the Present Economic Crisis.

It is because the Act increasingly amounts to repressive legislation, because it is used outside the immediate context of the North of Ireland and because we may see the police practice connected with the Act and other pieces of repressive legislation being increasingly extended as the Economic Crisis deepens that I shall oppose its continuation.

Brymbo did well but now, because of the Economic Crisis, it is in difficulties.

The Government are the first I have known who have caused an Economic Crisis and then attempted to solve it by punishing the poorest and most deprived in our society.

As far as is possible, we try to exempt key capital programmes, such as road building, from the consequences of the inevitable cuts in public spending that must be made across the field by a Government at a time of Economic Crisis.

We shall oppose these reductions, which are another example of central Government trying to blame Scottish local authorities for the shortcomings of their own policy, which has produced an Economic Crisis and record unemployment in Scotland.

I do not suppose that I shall be the only hon. Member to reflect that it seems extraordinary to spend a whole day on this matter at a time of Grave Economic Crisis, when we are in the midst of a currency crisis and when there are so many aspects of our very worrying economic scene that we ought to be discussing.

To revert to the emergency meeting next week, is the Prime Minister really saying to the House and the country that next Wednesday, in the midst of the Economic Crisis, she will be discussing further expenditure cuts, which will only add to the horrific employment figures?

Reports abound that a special meeting of the Cabinet is to take place this Wednesday to discuss the Economic Crisis.

The only way that any Government will succeed in that sphere is not by cobbling up a hasty incomes policy in a moment of Economic Crisis but by working it out seriously in advance, advocating it in Opposition and, coming into Government with a mandate from the electorate for a prices and incomes policy, and perhaps a policy on profits, as part of a total economic package to set before the nation.

It is clear that the Economic Crisis is getting worse - not better, as they optimistically predicted before the Budget.

We are debating the Third Reading of the Bill at a time of Acute Economic Crisis.

Tragically, while most people in their right mind would dismiss such options - either in respect of inner city disturbance or direct or indirect repression on wages or labour - as a response to Economic Crisis, it appears that this is the road down which the Government are going.

This is the first Government to exacerbate an Economic Crisis by their own actions and attempt to bail themselves out at the expense of the poor, the sick and the aged.

The Government have exacerbated the Economic Crisis and have thrown 3 million on to the dole, yet they say that the economy can be restored only if they limit improvements for those whom they have made unemployed.

Sir Raymond Gower: While acknowledging the efforts that have been made over new factories, may I ask my right hon. Friend to pay particular attention to the difficulties of some of the existing smaller firms that have been facing great problems, particularly during the Economic Crisis that has affected so much of the Western world?

In the Present Economic Crisis, we should take every possible means to ensure that we do not have needlessly divisive legislation, whether we are dealing with trade unions, local authorities or anyone else.

But at a time of Serious Economic Crisis £920 million for one year's EFL is a fairly large proportion of national resources to direct towards the railways.

It is a great record for a country that is going through an Economic Crisis.

And if it is possible to produce examples of restrictive practices, it must be said that an Economic Crisis such as the present one causes restrictive practices by making people defensive.

Will the Minister seek an early meeting with the new Polish ambassador and impress upon him that, although we wish to continue to help the Poles to overcome Their Economic Crisis, it will be on the basis that there is widespread support in this country for the aims of the free trade union, Solidarity, and a widespread view that the economic crisis has been brought about not by Polish trade unionists but by those who have held a monopoly of power in Poland for 35 years?

Secondly, they want to make working-class people, who are the main occupants of council houses, pay for the Economic Crisis.

1982

13 mentions

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One is talking here of specific companies, of the GECs and the BICCs which have faced considerable difficulties in the heavy engineering area of their companies precisely because of the uncertainty that has been introduced by the Current Economic Crisis for their long-term planning.

One is talking here of specific companies, of the GECs and the BICCs which have faced considerable difficulties in the heavy engineering area of their companies precisely because of the uncertainty that has been introduced by the current Economic Crisis for their long-term planning.

Does he realise that there was one year after an Economic Crisis when in real terms the Labour Government cut the Arts Council's grant by 10 per cent.

With regard to the point made by the hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Dover) about the engineering industry, will the Prime Minister concede that the first casualty in Any Economic Crisis is the construction industry, particularly in Scotland, where there are hundreds of thousands of people unemployed?

I take that as a measure of the increasing Economic Crisis that many of the developed economies are beginning to face in the future as in the past decade.

Presumably the buildings were designed at a time when the Economic Crisis was far less dramatic than it is now.

The burden of the Economic Crisis has fallen dispropor-tionately on the unskilled, the young, the immigrants and those with mental or physical disabilities throughout the Community.

On the contrary, the CAP is beginning to create an Economic Crisis within Europe because of the cost of support, and the changes have not taken place.

The Prime Minister held them responsible for Britain's Economic Crisis.

However, the Prime Minister surely should have sought to secure a meeting in Europe with some of the other countries so that broader and more international measures could be planned for dealing with the deepening Economic Crisis.

To try to make it an immediate issue in the light of the Terrible Economic Crisis that exists and to overlook many other relevant factors seems wholly unconstructive.

When there is an Economic Crisis women are turned to, jobs are made available, they are encouraged to work, and there is help with the provision of nursery facilities.

I am becoming a bit sick and tired of the way that local government is blamed every time there is some sort of Economic Crisis, whether it is a run on sterling, the deindustrialisation of the nation or the excessive rates of interest.

1983

15 mentions

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WEDNESDAY 19 JANUARY - Opposition Day (4th Allotted Day) - There will be a debate on an Opposition motion on the Economic Crisis.

The debate has been called for by the Opposition to discuss what they term the Economic Crisis, so it might be a good idea first to find out whether there is a current economic crisis.

Most people have discounted the chance of a Labour Administration in the foreseeable future, or we would have a Real Economic Crisis on our hands.

I believe, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sidcup said, that the world stands on the verge of an Economic Crisis.

I hope the House will forgive me if I leave the global economic position to one side, say a little about the national economic position and concentrate more on the position in Merseyside in terms of the Economic Crisis and how it affects the people of Merseyside and Merseyside itself.

Is not that a grave prospect for this country in Our Present Economic Crisis, and will the hon. and learned Gentleman tell us whether he regards the recent 12 per cent.

That is particularly true during this period of Economic Crisis.

We have shattered and devastated our economy, and we are enduring the Worst Economic Crisis for more than half a century.

The difference is essentially that agencies such as the North of England development council, the North West industrial development association and others aim to attract and pull into an area that which is not already there, whereas the enterprise board approach is far more to reinforce and promote success among what is already there and, where possible, to stem and offset the decline among small and medium-size firms that have been especially critically hit by the Current Economic Crisis.

I feel that the Economic Crisis of the late 1960s and the 1970s saw Labour and Conservative Governments involved in crisis management.

The Minister referred to Our Economic Crisis as "horrendous but not insurmountable".

Given the Economic Crisis, the Government should withdraw the Finance Bill.

They want to solve the Economic Crisis at the expense of the working class.

Argentina cut back on spending in an Economic Crisis aggravated by the Falklands war.

In a world which is dominated by issues of security and defence, where the enormous risks of nuclear weapons, piled one on top of the other, pose enormous problems and risks which should not be underestimated - not least the consequences for the finances of the world when so much of the resources are spent on armaments - we cannot underestimate the consequences for future generations if the world does not solve the Economic Crisis that confronts it today.

1984

18 mentions

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But many restrictions continue in force for what is called the "period of overcoming the socio-Economic Crisis".

The Government are spending all that to keep Ronald Reagan happy and to provide additional work in the run-up to his election before the boom comes to a sudden halt and we run into the Biggest Economic Crisis that this country or the western world has ever faced.

That shows not only the scale of the problem and the depth of the Economic Crisis, but the way in which this affects our young and, in some cases, vulnerable people.

Yet there came not a word from the right hon. Gentleman about the 1976 Economic Crisis.

It is important to remember that that increase occurred when Britain was facing the Worst Economic Crisis since the war, and when the Government did not have the supreme benefit of oil.

As a result of the Economic Crisis that we might have got into if the measures had not been taken, much of the growth had to be taken away from the health authorities and we were back where we started.

They were faced with the Worst Economic Crisis that Britain had experienced since the war.

The loss to the coal board, the additional expenses to the CEGB, the lost taxes from the striking miners, the revenue lost to British Rail, and the cost of the massive police operation present the Government with a Serious Economic Crisis.

Will he explain what his party would do faced with an Economic Crisis and cuts in the Health Service?

May we have an emergency debate on the Economic Crisis?

The nation is in the midst of an Economic Crisis, but we have not had a statement about the British economy, which is in ruins.

Moreover, before the hon. Gentleman gets carried away by his own enthusiasm, he should remember that we have plenty of crises to deal with - the Economic Crisis and the crisis in the coal industry, to mention but two.

] But if it will not do as an alibi for the underlying and intensifying Economic Crisis, there can be no doubt that, as every week goes by, the costs of the dispute mount.

Economic Crisis is now upon us.

But let us he clear about one thing: the Economic Crisis that I have already described cannot be blamed upon the mining dispute.

One thing is clear: the Economic Crisis in this country exists in just about every western European country, the United States and Canada.

We have to link the Present Economic Crisis and deflationary policies with what the Government are doing in regard to their own aid programme.

I would stress a further point on the relationship between the Current Economic Crisis and the Bank's lending policy and the role of IDA.

1985

five mentions

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When one talks of Economic Crisis, one thinks of Wales, Scotland, the north-east and the north-west.

In the 1930s, teachers were asked, if not required, by the national Government in an Economic Crisis to take a cut in salaries.

At times like the present, when we have an Economic Crisis and a social crisis, one needs the arts more than ever.

In the Economic Crisis which we, and the rest of the world, have been in, they argue that it has been necessary for the Government to take a radical Right-wing line to attempt-I underline that word attempt - to stabilise our economy.

Of course, none of us can deny the difficulties to which they refer, but that does not mean that the Opposition will not be looking for progress in the next 12 months, first, because we passionately desire dialogue and a peaceful, soundly based settlement of disputes, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Mr. Silkin) stressed, and, secondly, because, with the arms build-up/and the Economic Crisis affecting not only the Alliance, but the Third world, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Strang) reminded the House, it is vital that if the mad arms race is to be stopped, the balance of forces must be reduced by negotiation.

1986

six mentions

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It should not be seen as surprising that the groups that have been most directly affected by the Economic Crisis that the Government's policies have generated are those who behave in a deviant way.

Today we debate the City against a background of continuing Economic Crisis.

And I have been in the House long enough to know that drastic decisions are taken by Cabinets when they face Economic Crisis.

It was suggested that the Government may be running into an Economic Crisis.

I warn the Government and the country that we face the prospect of a Serious Economic Crisis after the election, provided, of course, that the Prime Minister gets her election timing right.

As I have said, I do not believe that an Economic Crisis is inevitable.

1987

13 mentions

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It is interesting to note that the debate which he previously had in mind was to be on the Economic Crisis which the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook keeps inventing, but that has been postponed.

Now, of course, the right hon. Gentleman is predicting an Economic Crisis.

Of course, Economic Crisis is what we always associate with the Labour party.

The conduct of economic policy, as the House will recall, had by then been handed over to the International Monetary Fund to which the Labour Government hadhad to go, cap in hand, the previous September, as they became engulfed in the Worst Economic Crisis since the war.

Why then, except for the fear of Economic Crisis, are the Government preparing for a snap election?

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that an Economic Crisis would occur in Britain as a result of domestic policies only if the Labour party were able to implement its policies.

No matter how hard he tries no one will believe in the Impending Economic Crisis that the Labour party tries to paint for us on every occasion.

In every previous debate of this nature he has also said that an Economic Crisis is just around the corner.

During the course of her busy day, will my right hon. Friend, when considering the Government's economic policy, give close and careful consideration to comments made by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), who said that there was a race on between the Economic Crisis and the general election?

When we move to an independent Scotland, I shall suggest that one of the first policy initiatives of an independent Government-whether SNP or Labour - should be to ensure a major expansion in the SDA's funding to the level that will allow it to tackle the Economic Crisis facing Scotland.

I remember also the cuts in the hospital programme that were due to the Economic Crisis.

Following the crash in the financial markets, and with the threat of an Economic Crisis looming, the House should concentrate its mind on the lessons to be learnt from the turbulent events of recent weeks with one overriding objective - the urgent steps that need to be taken to ward off the threat of economic downturn, with the painful consequences for jobs, the standard of living and the national economic strength that would come in train of that.

They seem to forget that it was under the previous Labour Government that we had the Worst Economic Crisis that any of us could remember.

1988

nine mentions

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Is the Minister aware that, because of the cut in the money GLA will be receiving as a result of abolition, there will be a Major Economic Crisis facing the arts in London?

Are not the majority of vacancies in the service industries - in low-paid jobs - and does that not hide the fact that we have lost 2 million jobs in manufacturing industry since 1979, which accounts for the massive balance of trade deficit in manufactured goods that the country now faces as part of the Current Economic Crisis?

I recalled the comments of the right hon. Gentleman during the general election when he said that Britain was in the throes of an Economic Crisis and I began to think about what would happen if someone received a press release from the right hon. Gentleman referring to the manipulation of the law by the Government-the right hon. Gentleman implied that freedom was under threat - or received one of his earlier press releases about the country being in an economic crisis.

Those are wise words, and there are even wiser words to come, because it goes on:In so far as the electorate remembers Labour's rule in the Seventies, they associate the decade with Economic Crisis, strikes and hyper-inflation.

They did so in the face of Their Economic Crisis, as they did in 1976.

That problem becomes worse as every day goes by, particularly in the context of the Economic Crisis facing the Government.

It would be certainly a much lower pound, lower interest rates in the short term but then having to rocket up later, an Economic Crisis, and raging inflation.

If I may quote from the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) at the time, he said: Following the crash in the financial markets, and with the threat of an Economic Crisis looming, the House should concentrate its mind on the lessons to be learnt from the turbulent events of recent weeks with one overriding objective - the urgent steps that need to be taken to ward oil the threat of economic downturn, with the painful consequences for jobs, the standard of living and the national economic strength that would come in train of that".

I do not think that the country or the House has got out of proportion the seriousness of the Present Economic Crisis.

1989

11 mentions

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The extent of Our Economic Crisis and the economic disaster which my right hon. and hon. Friends will inherit will mean that there cannot possibly be any return to business as usual - to the Callaghan or Wilson years of a little change here and there.

It is a time of Great Economic Crisis and I wish to know whether the Prime Minister has sought leave to come to the House to make a statement on what appears to be the biggest crisis of this Parliament.

There has been a suggestion that the House should adjourn while we consider the Economic Crisis that is engulfing the country because of the incompetence of the Government's conduct of affairs, the resignation of the Chancellor and the issues arising from the guillotine motion that is currently before the House.

I hope that either by your ruling, or by discussions through the usual channels, we can ensure that the most senior member of the Government has the opportunity to come to the Chamber to explain what has happened and why, in the middle of an Economic Crisis, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has resigned.

It is imperative that, at the earliest opportunity, the Government put before the House their proposals to deal with the deepening Economic Crisis which they have ignored for far too long.

In years to come, this week will be remembered as a constitutional rather than an Economic Crisis.

Only one piece of the old jigsaw was missing from the time warp - an Economic Crisis.

It seems that some people take the view that, because of the Economic Crisis and because the pound is in trouble, we ought to wave a wand.

The harsh reality now is that we have an Economic Crisis, and there is a big question mark as to whether it will deteriorate into a major recession with all the hardship that that would cause.

We must look deeper, as Tory propagandists have yet to catch up with the magnitude of the Economic Crisis.

It is clearly in the interests of democratic western Europe that the processes of economic recovery and democratic change in eastern Europe do not collapse because of an Economic Crisis.

1990

16 mentions

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There is currently no medium or long-term ECGD cover to Cameroon following its 1987–1988 Economic Crisis and subsequent structural adjustment programme.

It is our people who carry the burden of the Economic Crisis created by inflation.

I say advisedly to the right hon. Gentleman - perhaps I anticipate the point that the hon. Member for Beverley (Mr. Cran) seeks to make - that it would be far better to offer companies an escape clause to cut pension payments in conditions of Real Economic Crisis than to continue at a time of sustained profitability grossly to underpay pensioners on the grounds that occupational schemes cannot accept an open-ended commitment to inflation-proofed pensions.

If the hon. Gentleman did not say that, he certainly talked about conditions of Economic Crisis.

I accept that there could be conditions of Real Economic Crisis - I used those words advisedly - when in some cases it might be impossible for those schemes to meet their obligations.

When he speaks of conditions of Economic Crisis, does he mean a broad, generalised crisis affecting the economy or would his dispensation clause let out a particular pension fund that got into difficulties, which is a much more likely eventuality?

I noted the get-out clause that it contained- that those promises would not have to be implemented in the event of an Economic Crisis - and I suspect that if Opposition Members were ever returned to office that clause would be implemented fairly early on.

If there is a way out of the Economic Crisis that Britain faces in the 1990s, it is surely to invest in manufacturing and provide it with the best skill training base that we can offer through a partnership between employers and employees.

At the very first Labour party conference I attended in 1976, Lord Callaghan, the then Prime Minister, said that the days when Governments could borrow or spend their way out of an Economic Crisis were over.

Is the Prime Minister aware that her offer of help with management training will have been welcomed, but that it is wholly inadequate for the Economic Crisis that would be engendered by the move to the market economy?

The special programme for sub-Saharan Africa was launched in 1977 to enable IFAD to give greater support to agricultural development in Africn countries, stricken by drought and the encroaching desert, at a time of Acute Economic Crisis.

This country's Economic Crisis is acute.

That has been the main Government club with which they have bashed the Economic Crisis caused by the consumer credit boom which was let loose as an election bribe.

After 11 years in office, the Government have created a Major Economic Crisis.

At this important moment, when the country is in Economic Crisis, when the Government are split and when we face an important set of decisions, for the House to have dissolved into the kind of bear garden that we have seen in the past two hours is a disgrace to all the things that we stand for.

The hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) predicted that, if the Labour party won the next general election, in the ensuing Economic Crisis the party, led by the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock), would move firmly to the left.

1991

seven mentions

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Structural adjustment in the 1980s has not solved the Economic Crisis.

Will the Secretary of State urgently meet his colleagues in Scotland to discuss the Economic Crisis which will follow the closure of the base?

In the words of the ACP negotiators:The fourth convention should be seen as a major instrument in arresting and reversing the Economic Crisis.

That slump in investment is additional evidence of the gravity of agriculture's Economic Crisis.

He said that such a Labour Government would soon enter an Economic Crisis and would then lurch to the left.

It was clear from these discussions that the Soviet Union is facing a growing Economic Crisis with output falling and with growing budget deficits at the union and republic levels leading to an increase in inflationary pressures.

It is experiencing an Economic Crisis: parts of eastern Europe are on the brink of total economic disintegration.

1992

13 mentions

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They have been quite conscious and deliberate in their experimental attempts to solve the Economic Crisis that they created by shifting Britain in the last decade to being a vulnerable, low-wage economy.

After six anti-trade union legislative measures, the Government cannot blame the unions for This Economic Crisis - they cannot claim that strikes are to blame.

Will the Prime Minister come out of his ivory tower across the road, put his photo calls on hold and face up to his responsibility for the past 13 years of Government mismanagement, which has culminated in the Worst Economic Crisis since the 1930s?

At a time of Economic Crisis the Government will make matters worse by further cuts in training expenditure.

Secondly, no republic can continue funding to previous levels, given that Economic Crisis measures must take priority.

The Current Economic Crisis, together with social unrest and potential political instability, may supervene in any attempt to reorganise science.

Is it not of some interest that this statement has been made just before the House goes into the long summer recess, a decision based on sheer political dogma, and that we are not being told what is to be done about the growing and deepening Economic Crisis and the fear of higher interest rates?

There is no doubt in my mind that this has been the Biggest Economic Crisis for 60 years, since we were forced off the gold standard in 1931 for similar reasons, because we had committed our currency to an over-valuation through linking it to the gold standard.

I do not believe that Our Economic Crisis is over because we have now floated the pound.

Why are the Government going ahead, particularly at a time of Acute Economic Crisis?

If it is true that there is an Economic Crisis, we have a sinking ship.

Not long ago, a sensible article in The Observer said:The Government is not going to be able to solve the Economic Crisis unless it secures a European solution.

I could hardly describe a record level of gross capital spending in times of Economic Crisis as a black day.

1993

16 mentions

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We then had the debate in the House on the Economic Crisis facing the United Kingdom.

African countries, in Economic Crisis and in desperate need of balance of payment support, would be most hard hit by cuts in aid.

of GDP balance of trade deficit which will unleash a Major Economic Crisis, as a result of which the Government of the day will return to the politics of recession to resolve that crisis.

During Tuesday's debate on unemployment in the manufacturing sector, we were told repeatedly by Conservative Members that those of us who highlight the facts of the recession and Britain's Economic Crisis are talking Britain down.

Essentially, the Government are staggering from one economic policy to the next, as they stagger from one Economic Crisis to the next.

As I recently visited Russia in the company of Lord Healey, will the Minister accept from me that the reports of Russia's Economic Crisis are certainly not exaggerated and that the crisis is considerably worsened by the political paralysis there?

The hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson) said that coal is cheap, but for the last 10 years, unfortunately, this country has lurched from Economic Crisis to economic crisis.

It has exacerbated the Economic Crisis that the Russian people face and reactionary elements in the west are advising President Yeltsin to be firm and to demolish the powers of the Russian Parliament and to go for rule by decree.

My fear about the Budget is that, although we have seen one or two green shoots, 18 months down the road we may find ourselves in Another Economic Crisis because the Government have failed to take measures to deal with the balance of payments problem.

The Government are in Economic Crisis.

10 Downing street, not to 363 discuss the Economic Crisis but to hear the unwelcome political news.

I must warn the Prime Minister that he may think that the Economic Crisis is over, but for him the political crisis is only just beginning.

instead there is a lacuna—a pause between the Current Economic Crisis and the next economic catastrophe.

We are not on the verge of a recovery; instead there is a lacuna - a pause between the Current Economic Crisis and the next economic catastrophe.

We are not on the verge of a recovery; instead there is a lacuna - a pause between the current Economic Crisis and the next economic catastrophe.

There is a need for a review, but what we are threatened with is a reckless cut, done in panic by Her Majesty's Government because of the Economic Crisis into which they have led our country.

1994 to 1995

two mentions

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I have been working on a study of Whitehall's reaction to the Economic Crisis that communities such as mine faced in the 1930s.

I was referring to the Economic Crisis.

1996

three mentions

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Those buildings were cancelled because of the capital cuts made by the last Labour Government, which were brought about by the Economic Crisis.

The Welsh parliamentary party met in the mid-1930s when there was an Economic Crisis, to try to gain some degree of consensus and present a united voice on the economic plight in south Wales to Whitehall and Westminster.

It is important that the fines should not be so excessive as to make the Economic Crisis worse, that the process should not be automatic and that it should be subject to political decisions by the Council of Ministers at every stage.

1997

four mentions

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Incredibly, Kent survived one Economic Crisis after another under Labour Governments and services were maintained.

It is also an Economic Crisis, because the cuts have a direct impact on local businesses and local employment.

Instability has crippled Labour Governments in the past, so that all their energy has been consumed in fighting one Economic Crisis after another.

The desperate plight of the victims of Creutzfeldt-Jakob, and the Economic Crisis that BSE has created for British farmers are well known.

1998

18 mentions

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of our domestic properties are in band A - nearly three times the national average - that Liverpool's Economic Crisis is acute.

My hon. Friend movingly described the human cost of Mozambique's Economic Crisis.

One of the main points of contention is the Economic Crisis that will affect rural areas and all types of employment there - not only agricultural workers, who are covered by the Agricultural Wages Board, but all other workers, such as those working in tourism or in agricultural supply.

Of course the Secretary of State could act with immediacy and urgency in a pressing Economic Crisis, but equally it would be for Parliament to take a view on whether the Secretary of State had acted properly and whether he should continue with any action he had taken.

If the Government believe that, even in normal economic circumstances, members of the armed forces should not be subject to the Bill's provisions; if they believe that, even in normal economic circumstances, people under the age of 26 would be difficult to employ if they were subject to a normal statutory national minimum wage; if they believe that, even in normal economic circumstances, self-employed people would find it excessively onerous, bureaucratic and a deterrent to their ability to create wealth and jobs to fulfil their commitments under a statutory national minimum wage, surely they recognise the powerful argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry, that, in circumstances of Acute Economic Crisis and distress of the sort that we have discussed this evening, the whole economy or, alternatively, some parts of it, either geographical or according to particular businesses, might require some assistance.

Does she agree that, although the Labour Government could not recognise an Economic Crisis, and would be powerless, unable or unwilling to do anything about one, we would suffer?

First, I believe that, in Opposition contributions to the debate, a somewhat loose use has been made of the very precise wording of new clause 8, which refers not to Economic Crisis - which might be regarded as unlikely to occur frequently - but to "extreme economic circumstances".

Mr. White: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will make a statement on what aid is being given to Indonesia (a) by her Department and (b) by non-governmental organisations to alleviate the Current Economic Crisis.

We are going to avoid the Economic Crisis into which the previous Government plunged us in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Today's agenda - Kosovo, the Gulf, maintaining our engagement with Russia, dealing with the security consequences of Economic Crisis, Northern Ireland - will all be difficult enough, but perhaps the greatest test of the SDR will be its ability to deal successfully with the challenges that we cannot yet even predict or think about.

Only during the Economic Crisis in 1991 did the figure drop.

To understand the Economic Crisis now befalling Russia, one must understand the political crisis.

In 1997 alone, 304 murders were recorded in the Russian armed forces, and, following the Chechen military debacle which shook Russian military confidence, the Economic Crisis has hit the once proud Red Army.

Perhaps most distressing of all is the catastrophic drop in life expectancy, particularly among men, since the fall of communism, exacerbated by the Current Economic Crisis.

They have said that their answer to the Economic Crisis - the Leader of the Opposition looks puzzled; he should check on what his shadow Ministers are saying.

What confidence can business men and women, who face the prospect of a deepening Economic Crisis and who strive daily to keep their heads above water, have in Ministers who fail woefully to understand the real interest rates that real businesses must pay daily in the real world?

In an Economic Crisis, the weakest go to the wall first.

It is desperately important for the European Union to do something effective to ensure stability there during the Present Economic Crisis.

1999

four mentions

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It would take far too long for me to go into detail about the position in each country, but briefly, Australia sold because there was a mineral price slump in the world at the time and it had an Economic Crisis.

Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister, who has recently arrived in the Department of Trade and Industry from the Treasury, will be able to tell us whether there has been an Economic Crisis that we have not heard about, as a result of which interest rates for motor cars have risen independently.

Does my right hon. Friend recall that, at Prime Minister's questions a year ago, the Leader of the Opposition claimed that there was an Economic Crisis and demanded that the Chancellor be summoned to the House to explain the mess into which he had got the country?

There are those who say that globalisation and trade liberalisation carry much of the blame for Any Economic Crisis that may occur.

2000

seven mentions

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However, 1997 was the first time ever that the incoming Labour Government had a working majority and the absence of an Economic Crisis.

The poor of Zimbabwe suffer most from the Terrible Economic Crisis, and we want to stay engaged where we can be useful, without giving any support to some of the actions of Zimbabwe's Government that are so destructive for its people and its economy.

However, the upland areas in particular contain the farms which are under the most economic pressure: they are suffering from the Worst Economic Crisis that many can remember.

Suharto fell as a result of the Economic Crisis of 1997.

However, does the Minister agree that Economic Crisis is looming in Zimbabwe?

Then, we got dragged into the monetarist debate and we were told that part of our public expenditure was causing an Economic Crisis.

technical advice and funding to the Governance Partnership, a facility which provides support to governance reform initiatives identified and prioritised by Indonesian government and civil society; and support for the Community Recovery Programme, an Indonesian civil society response to the Economic Crisis, providing a "safety net" for those worst affected.

2001

seven mentions

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The Action Plan, now backed by £500 million, is providing short-term relief to the sectors hit hardest by the Current Economic Crisis but also supports longer-term action to encourage industry restructuring.

As my noble friend Lady Byford pointed out, it is universally accepted that farming is in an Economic Crisis.

At the same time, he will be conscious of the Economic Crisis that faces the world and our country.

It is worth remembering that agriculture was already experiencing the Worst Economic Crisis for a generation, and 24,000 jobs had been lost in the sector.

However, the Government have not yet shown that they have taken full measure of the Economic Crisis, although they have demonstrated that they appreciate the scope of the foot and mouth epidemic.

I shall not go into detail on how Zimbabwe's Economic Crisis is threatening to spill over into neighbouring countries, because others have already put it better than I could.

But none of that intimidation has been able to stop the revelations of the government's responsibility for violence, their contempt for the law and the extent of the Economic Crisis Zimbabwe now faces.

2002

nine mentions

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ECOFIN agreed a statement on Argentina, in response to the Economic Crisis there.

Everything should be subordinate to that end, even when we are firefighting in an Economic Crisis.

But, as I have said repeatedly in the House, we are dealing with an independent state which, given the Economic Crisis facing Zimbabwe, clearly does not put the concerns of its own citizens before its need for political power.

The Dire Economic Crisis is beginning seriously to damage neighbouring economies as well.

My Lords, can my noble friend the Minister advise the House how we can expect to solve the Economic Crisis facing Zimbabwe when the very person who is causing it is still in power?

Can he also assure us that, as a crucial part of the second strategy against terrorism, we shall look again with our international partners at the disastrous consequences of reducing the help for education in that country that flowed from the Economic Crisis of 1998?

This very day, Germany is in Economic Crisis.

We are focusing our effort on working with the international financial institutions which are providing support to address Argentina's Economic Crisis.

However, it surely follows that one reason why fewer roads are being completed now is because of decisions that were taken 10 years ago, when, as a result of the Economic Crisis that the Tories ran into, they had a spot of bother with public spending.

2003

five mentions

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I thought that we had so many golden rules, so many self-correcting mechanisms, and so many independent monetary regulators that an Economic Crisis was unthinkable.

One of our concerns about the coming year is that the Zimbabwean Government's food imports are likely to be reduced because the Economic Crisis means that they have fewer resources available for foreign purchases.

We will find out just how faulty it is only in the face of a Serious Economic Crisis, but there is plenty of evidence that it is not right at the moment.

Progress towards the goal of reducing by half the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day remains fragile owing to the Recent Economic Crisis.

For example, if owner-occupiers - or perhaps hundreds of thousands of them if there is an Economic Crisis, which cannot be ruled out, regardless of the party in power - get into difficulty, why can we not persuade building societies, and especially registered social landlords, to take over ownership of the homes but allow the people to stay in them?

2004

five mentions

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Will there be a Major Economic Crisis or a recession as a result?

The exception is designed to protect governments from the effects of Economic Crisis, allowing them flexibility.

If, for reasons of Economic Crisis or whatever, the Government wish to abandon additionality, then they can come back to Parliament, as they do when they amend every other taxation measure.

Will he confirm that his view is still the one that he expressed just a year and a half ago when he said that we were facing an Economic Crisis, analogous to the 1930s?

We no longer have to concern ourselves with the question whether we are talking about a Serious Economic Crisis, but we are looking for a way of trying to raise the threshold of what is sensibly meant by the term "emergency".

2006

one mention

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Furthermore, there has been the danger that the necessary sanctions may lead to an Economic Crisis.

2007

three mentions

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It will not ease the country's Economic Crisis.

The Economic Crisis and the extraordinary inflation, which the IMF says may reach 100,000 per cent this year, mean that anyone with savings and pensions will find them worthless if they are denominated in Zimbabwean currency - and this has hit right across the board.

Indeed, depending on the Economic Crisis to strike whichever Chancellor was in No.

2008

104 mentions

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1 billion increase for British taxpayers be right when we are in the middle of an Economic Crisis that requires us to have almost a statutory pay limit in the public services?

The Budget has not been about addressing the Economic Crisis or competitiveness: it has been about increasing taxation on ordinary people in this country.

If we are not careful, when the Economic Crisis bites, greenfield sites may well end up being the only land that is developed.

We ought not, then, to think that because world economic circumstances are unfavourable, Britain is in any way, shape or form remotely near Economic Crisis.

The recent rises in fuel prices have caused an Economic Crisis on our islands and remote parts of the mainland, particularly the Kintyre peninsula.

In an Economic Crisis it is understandable that frightened people are inclined to become protective.

I am a bit worried about the complacency behind that answer, because the recent fuel price rises are causing a Real Economic Crisis on the islands and in the remote parts of the mainland, particularly on the Kintyre peninsula.

At a time of Economic Crisis, with the Government in complete disarray, what is the Government's solution?

Let me make it clear that as a party we do not take any pleasure in the Current Economic Crisis that is affecting people not only in Northern Ireland but right across the United Kingdom.

In an Economic Crisis, when the economy is crying out for leadership, what is the Government's big idea?

At a time of Economic Crisis, with the cost of living continually rising, does the Minister honestly believe that taxpayers would see that as an acceptable and rational way to spend their money?

When the Chancellor first said a few weeks ago that we were facing the Worst Economic Crisis for 60 years, I think that many thought that it was a bit of an exaggeration.

To sign up to the sort of housing expansion envisaged in the strategy before we know what impact the Current Economic Crisis will have on home owners' behaviour would be complete folly.

The high-level involvement and significant contributions demonstrated to the world that, in the face of Economic Crisis, we must do more, not less, to help the poorest countries.

That Council, which would originally have focused on issues to do with the Lisbon treaty, will now be significantly devoted to the Economic Crisis and how Europe should respond to it.

With the best will in the world, surely the Leader of the House must realise that the public will think that it is totally inadequate that on most days next week we will not be discussing the Economic Crisis.

Was the Leader of the House surprised that Parliament was not recalled from recess, when we face the Worst Economic Crisis for 100 years and are going from boom to bust?

With 28 people gathering as a war cabinet for Economic Crisis, it is very impressive.

We are facing the most Serious Economic Crisis for a lifetime.

Enlargement has increased our weight in the world and helps us to deal with the challenges of globalisation, from climate change to the Current Economic Crisis.

It is a little naïve to think that the personality of the President will lead to a change in the policies of a country in which there is a separation of powers, and where there will be, as result of the Economic Crisis that we face today, less of a focus on trying to intervene in democracy and human rights issues worldwide, and more of a focus on coping with the economic consequences of the financial catastrophe that has hit the Us harder than the rest of the world.

We are living through the Worst Economic Crisis in living memory.

On that point, it is probably worth clarifying that the genesis of this Bill was in the depositor protection consultation of last October, when powers were sought to deal with failing banks based on the Economic Crisis that started last summer.

Does she agree that at a time of Economic Crisis, when each Department's budget will be under huge pressure, those highly damaging proposals should be scrapped?

In a bastardised means of pursuing Keynesianism through monetary policy, every time there has been an Economic Crisis, misjudgments have been made about the weakness of the economy.

Northern Ireland is not exempt from the Economic Crisis.

I do not accept that the Economic Crisis that has currently hit this country is the responsibility of the 1 million extra home owners in this country.

Does she think that the public are owed a similar apology over the failures in policy and weakness in regulation that have contributed to the Current Economic Crisis?

Despite the Current Economic Crisis, the most recent construction skills estimate was that there would be more than 40,000 new entrants to the industry every year.

In the context of the Current Economic Crisis and the fact that almost inevitably graduate unemployment will go up, what assessment has the Secretary of State made of the future of those figures, and what contingencies does he have in place?

Let me also take this opportunity to inform the House that the Regional Ministers are being brought together today in the Council of Regional Ministers to discuss the economic impact, region by region, of the Current Economic Crisis.

This is not just a time for national unity because of the Economic Crisis.

I would imagine that as the Economic Crisis unfolds there will be more and more situations in which the Prime Minister works with his colleagues in the euro-group.

I agree that such meetings have to be carefully prepared, but at a time of Economic Crisis, it is important that the discussions take place.

Is the Prime Minister aware that at a time of Grave Economic Crisis, the House can rarely have heard a statement of such worrying complacency about the public finances?

The judiciary have brought the protocol forward and we welcome that move, so that we can safeguard those who are particularly vulnerable during This Economic Crisis.

Unfortunately, fuel bills have got even higher in the meantime, and it has taken an Economic Crisis to stir the Government into real action on that front.

The hon. Gentleman is talking a great deal of sense and there is a lot of shared thought across the Chamber about the importance of investment in green technology and energy efficiency as a response to the Current Economic Crisis as well as for the long-term good of the economy.

have to operate", that means we have to spend in a way that takes us through This Economic Crisis.

The fact is that there are enormous challenges, and one such challenge in the Current Economic Crisis is to ensure that those who are economically on the bottom rung of the ladder do not become dislodged and take a generation to recover.

Even before the Current Economic Crisis, LOCOG, the BOA, sport governing bodies and individual athletes were scouring the market looking for private sponsorship.

Furthermore, the impact of the Current Economic Crisis on the employment prospects of young people is a terribly important outcome from the provisions of the Bill, and whether the provisions work should be carefully monitored and reported.

While the Economic Crisis and the credit crunch have dominated the attention of Members and the country - I believe that a full, two-day debate on the economy should be held - should we forget the suffering of the people of Zimbabwe?

This is clearly an Economic Crisis whose origins are international, and we are fortunate to have a Prime Minister who has not only strengthened our economy but can help to sort out the world economic problems.

Have there been any developments on exactly what message we can give in our constituencies that are facing trouble about how HMRC will put into effect the headlines on taking a more sympathetic approach at a time of Economic Crisis?

Just as we are rightly debating the effectiveness of multinational financial institutions to cope with the reality of today's Economic Crisis, we should be asking whether our multinational security institutions are properly structured and equipped to deal with the challenges of modern times.

We are told that the Present Economic Crisis - it is indeed a crisis - is international in nature and that therefore the UK had no opportunity to escape any of it.

My Lords, there can be no doubting the seriousness of the Current Economic Crisis that the UK faces along with many other nations.

It is absurd that, after months of Economic Crisis, this House only now has the opportunity to debate it.

In addition, it must be pointed out that the Economic Crisis will result in a reduction in tax revenues and there will be a need to spend more on benefits.

I then wish to iterate my view of the key causes of the Current Economic Crisis, discussing the global and UK background, before coming up later in my speech with a slightly more original look at the possible solutions.

I then wish to iterate my view of the key causes of the current Economic Crisis, discussing the global and UK background, before coming up later in my speech with a slightly more original look at the possible solutions.

Anyone who thinks that the traditional media no longer have influence might remember that last week a dispute over a programme on Radio 2 eclipsed the Biggest Economic Crisis since the war and provoked interventions by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.

We have worked very closely with America over the past few months on the Economic Crisis.

As an aspiration, therefore, owner-occupation is certainly a good thing, but have we gone too far and have we created a lot of problems that we are now reaping the whirlwind of in the Current Economic Crisis and the recession that we are just entering?

As my hon. Friends have dwelt in such depth and detail on a lot of the salient points at issue, I will concentrate slightly more on the political response to what in recent months has indeed been an unfolding Economic Crisis, as the title of the debate suggests.

I beg to move, That this House is concerned at the increasing difficulties caused by the Current Economic Crisis to many British citizens in maintaining their homes, paying their bills and providing for themselves and their families; believes that these problems originated not just in the global financial system but in unsustainable levels of personal borrowing and house prices which were overlooked by Government policy; is alarmed at the steep rise in mortgage arrears and repossession orders; regrets that, despite receiving £500 billion of taxpayers' money, the banking industry has failed to respond adequately to the needs of its customers or modify sufficiently its behaviour in respect of mortgage interest rates, new lending to struggling small businesses and its bonus culture; notes that the Bank of England has implemented the 2 per cent.

Quite a number of statements have suggested that This Economic Crisis was a thunderbolt out of the blue.

I have followed the career of the Conservative child prodigy with a benevolent interest, and it gives me great sadness to say that at every single juncture of This Economic Crisis he has been found wanting.

The Minister spoke for half an hour, but at no point did she address the salient point made about her response in the House to the Economic Crisis earlier this year.

With the greatest respect, I think that is a rather foolish thing to say, as President-elect Obama has spent the last 22 months saying that the Economic Crisis was born in Washington DC and New York, at the hands of the current Administration.

I shall follow a different tack from my hon. Friend and talk about the housing element of the east midlands spatial strategy and the effect of the Present Economic Crisis on that.

As my hon. Friendthe Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper) so clearly pointed out, it is no argument to use the Economic Crisis as an reason for restricting debate about whether we are going to spend up to £2 million of taxpayers' money on setting up eight more regional Select Committees and Grand Committees, or on whether the European Scrutiny Committee should continue to meet in private and not in public.

Scrutinising overseas aid effectiveness today, given the Economic Crisis that we are experiencing in our own country, is therefore of paramount importance.

1 priority - our top concern, as I am sure it is right hon. Lady's - is the effect of the Economic Crisis on all aspects of life for businesses and families.

The second backdrop is the Current Economic Crisis, which is not just a crisis for the developed world, but very much for the developing world, too.

While I will gladly leave the economists to argue about the costs here and the benefits there, and heeding the caution of the noble Lord, Lord Moser, I still anticipate that consensus will emerge around the conclusion of our report that the economic effect of immigration on GDP per capita is not that significant either way, and perhaps even less so now when set against the vast sums of money being consumed by our deepening Economic Crisis.

The Economic Crisis and the action by Governments across the world inevitably mean sharp increases in national debt relative to GDP - we will be no exception - but because we started from a stronger position, our debt will remain below that of other major countries.

Unless the Government are prepared to accept that, in the short term, each unit will require higher subsidy, there is no way that those units will be built and we will end up in a worse situation at the end of This Economic Crisis than we are in now.

Is not the truth about the PBR that it is not a response to the Economic Crisis but the consequence of a decade of his economic mismanagement?

The Prime Minister often claims that the source of the Current Economic Crisis emanated from the United States.

The gracious Speech recognises that overshadowing all our deliberations in the next Session will be the Economic Crisis.

The Present Economic Crisis shows that not only that our economy is broken but that our politics are increasingly broken, too.

However, an awful lot of them do not tackle the Economic Crisis that we face.

It is therefore welcome that, in dealing with the Economic Crisis, countries such as China, India and Brazil are now involved.

Our Economic Crisis should have brought home what we surely already know: that something that happens in one place in our interconnected world can have a knock-on effect elsewhere.

In Our Current Economic Crisis, the temptation might well be to turn inwards.

I do not think that This Economic Crisis is like previous economic crises from which we bounced back safely to where were.

Now, in this time of Economic Crisis, we seem intent on continuing that approach; but as a strategy, it is neither prudent nor sustainable.

I also fear that some elements of the Islamic world will have regard to the west's Ongoing Economic Crisis.

It does not seem to be a good time to introduce an additional cost for businesses that are struggling to survive in a time of Economic Crisis.

It is not necessary for me to catalogue the measures being taken by the Government to deal with the Economic Crisis, we all know them, and they have already been highlighted in the debate.

To summarise, however, I think that there is agreement that we now have a Major Economic Crisis, caused in large measure by a financial crisis.

We are told on a daily basis that the country faces a global Economic Crisis and that every part of the world is suffering because of what began in the USA.

Both consultations began before the Economic Crisis, yet the Government have seen fit to continue with that folly, despite the need for those jobs in future.

The thrust of the current proposed legislation is towards ameliorating the effects of the Economic Crisis on the lives of families up and down the country, which is as it should be.

However, the challenge of improving our criminal justice system is just as vital a part of ensuring the fabric of a healthy society as the challenge posed by the Economic Crisis.

We know, a la Mr Damian Green, that the Home Office itself believes that the Economic Crisis will see a concomitant rise in crime and disorder, yet there are no measures to divert people, particularly those with mental health needs or learning disabilities, away from the criminal justice system into health and social care.

The G20 meeting in Washington last month was an important step in securing a decisive and systematic international response to the Economic Crisis.

We do not want a lightweight Leader of the Opposition at this time of Grave Economic Crisis.

That will place big demands, particularly at a time of Economic Crisis, on the budgets and commitments of some European Union states.

On the Economic Crisis - the credit crunch and the wider recession - the European Union has a European economic recovery plan.

Local authorities do not need to be told of the importance of their role in the Current Economic Crisis.

The noble Baroness, Lady Young, spoke of the challenges of the Current Economic Crisis, and I endorse her point that legislation should be fit for purpose for years to come and people should be fairly treated.

The Economic Crisis has highlighted the failings of the international financial architecture and should help to galvanise support for our efforts to reform the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Alarming new statistics recently published by Carers UK reveal that the nation's carers are under even more pressure as living costs rise and the Economic Crisis affects even more families.

Some other hon. Members have chosen not to blame the Current Economic Crisis on the Government, and that surprises me.

As a nation, as individuals or as a people, the answer to the Economic Crisis cannot be that we should just go back to where we were.

My Lords, the Economic Crisis that the world faces is the worst since the 1930s.

, and it is obviously crucial that the poorest in the world do not pay the highest price for the Current Economic Crisis.

It is therefore critical to meet the challenge of bringing both our own development programme to bear and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, said, ensuring that India, like the rest of the world, is helped through This Economic Crisis and that issues such as free trade, which are so important to India, are not lost as a consequence of global economic recession.

People in the highlands and islands want to see all levels of government working together to tackle the Economic Crisis.

Will the Leader of the House reflect on a proper way of managing the reporting back of the Government's responses to the Economic Crisis?

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the question of accountability to the House for the work of the Government in tackling the global Economic Crisis.

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I was intrigued by the fact that the position may conflict with that of his colleague, Lord Cotter, who speaks for the Liberal Democrats in the Lords: "It does not seem to be a good time to introduce an additional cost for businesses that are struggling to survive in a time of Economic Crisis".

We have an Economic Crisis at the moment that could challenge financial support and early intervention.

We are faced with an Economic Crisis that is related possibly more to industry than we realise, and not to service industries.

One thing that we need to do to get out of the Current Economic Crisis is to encourage and promote more saving.

The Recent Economic Crisis is bringing such problems into even sharper relief, with consequences for home owners, house builders and prospective buyers.

They wished to express their deep concern about the impact of the Current Economic Crisis on London's social housing stock.

The focus on the Economic Crisis is useful to the overall debate on housing need.

I say to Members who have opposed what I have suggested that we are no longer in the situation that has prevailed in past years; we are unfortunately in an Economic Crisis, about which many people are very concerned.

Surely, the time must now have arrived, not least in light of the Current Economic Crisis, when the Government seriously have to reconsider their hugely expensive Titan prison programme.

Will the Minister intervene and ask what economic and financial impact assessment has been done and whether it was done during or before the Economic Crisis?

That is the constitutional problem, so will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on how, in This Economic Crisis, we make sure that key ministerial posts are filled by people who are properly answerable to this House?

Is not that the wrong way to spend the Department's money at a time of Economic Crisis, when sports club budgets are being cut, and was not his spokeswoman wrong yesterday to say describe it as a coup for Britain?

The Minister cited that statement, but the EU is referring to excessive deficits that arise as a result of tackling the Economic Crisis, not to excessive deficits that are already in breach of the growth and stability pact limit and that were being run before we even went into recession.

The Minister quoted that statement, but the EU is referring to excessive deficits that arise as a result of tackling the Economic Crisis, not to excessive deficits that are already in breach of the growth and stability pact limit and that were being run before we even went into recession.

I welcome this opportunity to debate the Economic Crisis and an EU response to it.

Liberal Democrats regard the EU as having a useful role to play in bringing nation states together to co-ordinate our response to the Current Economic Crisis effectively.

Even in the midst of Economic Crisis, we must be aware of how vital it is that all of us can continue to call on the NHS when we need it, and to know that its staff will respond with the capacity required, as well as the commitment and compassion that they have always shown in treating us as patients when we go to hospital or otherwise access the NHS.

We have had a generally thoughtful debate about savings in the UK economy and the impact of the Current Economic Crisis on savers.

These amendments will not abolish the economic cycle but taken together, if they were on the statute book, we would never again have an Economic Crisis caused by a banking crisis caused by debts that went unseen by auditors, regulators and central banks.

The Statement indicates that we have moved to the next stage of the Economic Crisis.

The Economic Crisis and action by Governments across the world will inevitably mean sharp increases in national debt relative to GDP.

We now await the Budget to see how much further the Government's finances have deteriorated since the autumn and what further steps they plan to take to recognise the scale of the Current Economic Crisis.

The central question today is what we do about the Serious Economic Crisis.

Keynes foresaw that there are times, like the Present Economic Crisis, when Governments have no alternative but to create artificial wealth to replace at least some of the overvalued wealth that created the problem in the first place.

The Government have persisted, and the Minister's speech today is no exception, in blaming the Economic Crisis on the global credit crunch.

For example, eight years ago before the Economic Crisis - and I choose this so no claim can be made that economic events distorted the forecast - Gordon Brown stated that Her Majesty's Government would borrow £28 billion between 2001 and 2006.

Most political attention is focused on the Economic Crisis that we are all living through, but we must not in the course of it lose sight of the climate crisis.

What extra support can we provide to assist students during the Current Economic Crisis?

We must not allow the Economic Crisis to have a damaging impact on them.

If I heard him correctly, I think he said that Britain now faces an Economic Crisis that is perhaps the worst for a century.

We are in an Economic Crisis and loads of people right across the piece are losing their jobs and needing help, so why on earth are the LSCs being scrapped now?

The Prime Minister and the Chancellor have held extensive conversations with international partners to ensure a co-ordinated global response to the Economic Crisis.

The Secretary of State is right to say that preparations need to be made to deal with the inevitable rise in unemployment as a result of the Economic Crisis.

Despite the Government's claims to have boosted funding through measures such as LABGI, it is pretty much unchanged since the earlier announcement, and there has been no response to the Economic Crisis.

It is a shame that the Minister is not feeling bolder, because we have missed an opportunity to make much more fundamental changes that would give councils a much bigger role in responding to the Economic Crisis.

At a time of Economic Crisis across many countries, it is important that money moves quickly and efficiently.

The Economic Crisis is global in nature and has consequences for every country.

The Executive are trying to achieve what all hon. Members want - the stabilisation of an Economic Crisis and beginning of life again.

I know he was one of the first people to predict the Present Economic Crisis.

The talks on the Economic Crisis with my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Chancellor addressed preparations for the London summit, avoiding protectionism, moving towards a low-carbon economy and reform of international financial institutions.

I launched the UK-China framework last month because the Government believe that positive engagement with China is essential to achieving our wider international objectives and to addressing the major global challenges, including the Current Economic Crisis.

All the Bill would do, if it became an Act, is deepen and lengthen the Economic Crisis that is facing this country and cause even more financial suffering for my constituents and everyone who lives around Heathrow airport.

What more could a Minister in this Government, at this time, in This Current Economic Crisis, want to hear than such unequivocal, categorical advice on how to boost the local economy of that area?

Does he agree that in the Current Economic Crisis it would be wise for the Treasury to reverse its policy and leave the money locally?

Share prices have fallen steeply, and programme budgets and staff numbers are being cut back ever further by the Current Economic Crisis.

Of course, the Current Economic Crisis will divert President Obama from spending the time he probably would wish on foreign policy.

I shall focus on what I believe the developing world hopes will emerge from the summit, which faces the challenge of responding to what is probably the world's most Serious Economic Crisis since the 1930s.

In terms of Washington's role in the region, I take the point made by several noble Lords that the Obama Administration may well find themselves preoccupied with the Economic Crisis, but we should be assured by the fact that some of the finest Us minds have been brought to bear in the White House policy review on Afghanistan and Pakistan that is currently under way.

I hope to catch Mr. Deputy Speaker's eye and speak on the Wylfa issue a little later, but on tourism, given the Economic Crisis and the weakness of the pound, is there not an opportunity to encourage people from European countries, particularly the Republic of Ireland, to come to Wales over Easter?

I should be interested to hear the right hon. Gentleman's response to my practical and relevant suggestion that additional borrowing powers for the Welsh Assembly Government would, in fact, help us to combat the Economic Crisis that we face.

The Present Economic Crisis is hitting us hard, but we are starting from stronger foundations than ever before.

I would like to focus on the Economic Crisis, which was at the heart of many of the speeches that we have heard.

However, given the Economic Crisis that we are in at the moment, that is not a reality.

It is heartening that the mass of people on whom the neo-liberal experiment has been tried have rejected it, and we can draw some lessons from that as we face the Current Economic Crisis.

I know that in the Current Economic Crisis, everyone is hurting, but the annual cost of sending observers to the OSCE is almost peanuts.

Pensioners have to choose between trying to keep warm, buying food and paying for TV licences, and those decisions are becoming tougher in the Current Economic Crisis.

My constituents explained that pensioners are suffering terribly under the Economic Crisis.

On any reasonable standard, the EU has failed on the two fundamental tests that I would apply: first, it has failed on democracy and, secondly, it has failed on the economy, especially during the Economic Crisis that we are experiencing.

Perhaps the Minister can explain what action is being taken to make sure that the right skills training and education is being implemented so that in this time of Economic Crisis, we will have the workforce with the necessary skills to fill the nearly 200,000 posts that are expected to be required for the 2012 Olympics, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, referred.

The issues might be different or might disproportionately affect women, and there might be other reasons to talk about women, but we are having the debate because we are concerned about the plight of all British citizens - as well as citizens across the world, as my hon. Friendthe Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) so eloquently set about explaining - and the impact that the Economic Crisis will have on us all, and disproportionately on some of the more vulnerable in our society.

It is also a pity that the right hon. Lady was obviously told from on high, as were the hon. Members for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) and for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper), not to bother too much about women but to try to blame us throughout the debate for the Economic Crisis.

I hope that the Chancellor will say in the Budget that because of the Current Economic Crisis the revaluation based on 2008 rental values will be abandoned - that would be extremely welcome to small business.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, as part of that debate, we should look at business rate reform, because small businesses in our constituencies, particularly small retail outlets in our shopping centres, are suffering terribly in the Current Economic Crisis?

I want to touch briefly on a few of the issues that the Select Committee has considered in relation to the Present Economic Crisis, and to pick up on the theme of its impact on small businesses.

For a start, this is a time of Economic Crisis, and the decisions being taken by these Ministers are hugely important.

Until recently, when the Current Economic Crisis is producing a bit of a rethink, successive Governments have been under the impression that private means competence and that public is the reverse of competence.

Has he noticed that in this time of Economic Crisis, the number of countries seeking derogation has risen to 15 and is growing, precisely because countries now appreciate that they need that flexibility, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses?

Beyond that, we await the so-called "second order" effects in the Economic Crisis.

The discussions that took place there on the effects of the global Economic Crisis for developing countries focused on the serious gender-specific consequences for women in poor countries: on girls becoming more vulnerable because they have been taken out of school as households cope with declining household income; on the effects on women's health; and on the almost inevitable increase in infant mortality.

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, for initiating this debate, which will help to throw light on issues that are too often ignored by the international press and politicians when they are analysing the impact of the Economic Crisis.

The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, addressing the Economic Crisis, said in a lecture last weekend: "Any morally and practically credible policy should be looking to guarantee that future generations do not inherit liabilities that will cripple the provision of basic social care".

In conclusion, there is a real danger that This Economic Crisis will result in even more human trafficking.

In the Current Economic Crisis, gym membership, which has been growing among women, will probably come under threat.

The global Economic Crisis has captured the eyes and ears of the world, and during these troubling times, it is important that we pay attention to the group that many reports indicate will be one of the worst affected: women.

Like others, I was a bit bemused by the title of this debate, which I was tempted to turn on its head and call attention to the role of men in the global Economic Crisis.

As my noble friend Lady Hogg said in her eloquent speech, it is important to explore the ways in which the global Economic Crisis affects different groups of people so that the most effective help can be provided.

What action, if any, has been taken with regard to improving education and access to skills training, especially for women in developing countries, as they, too, are living through This Difficult Economic Crisis?

The Bill has scant regard for the Economic Crisis facing Britain, and comes despite disastrous figures for businesses and the economy generally.

With respect to the question asked about the moratorium, this is a very difficult area, not least because at a time of Economic Crisis it is important that we reduce as much as possible the burden of regulation and other burdens on businesses.

Nevertheless, the imposition of new regulations at a time of Economic Crisis can be very unhelpful.

I beg to move, That this House condemns the fact that, nine months into a recession, Government policy is failing to tackle the deepening Economic Crisis; notes that the measures announced months ago, including the Working Capital Scheme, the National Internships Scheme, the Asset-Backed Securities Guarantee Scheme, the Homeowners Mortgage Support Scheme, the car manufacturers' finance guarantee and the Recruitment Subsidies Scheme, have not yet been implemented; questions whether there is any evidence at all that the temporary cut in value added tax has succeeded; notes with concern that the value added tax cut has added to a rapidly deteriorating fiscal position, and that Government debt is likely to double by 2013; calls on the Government once again to implement what was promised, to get credit moving by introducing a National Loan Guarantee Scheme, to take tax measures in order to help savers and to take other measures to help small businesses; and further calls on the Government to start addressing the long-term causes of the current crisis, including a build-up of government, corporate and personal debt which has left the UK more exposed than other countries, and to develop the required long-term reforms of the tax system, the failed tripartite system of regulation, and the public sector, so that in future Britain lives within its means.

I received an e-mail from Robert Jenrick, who relates a story about Newcastle-under-Lyme, where another good business has fallen victim to the Economic Crisis - a local engineering firm for over 40 years, and exactly the kind of respected employer of skilled workers that we must ensure survives the recession.

It does not help that at each stage of the Economic Crisis the Government have tended to go for a rosy scenario.

We called today's debate because people throughout Britain who face redundancy, short-time working, layoffs, pay cuts, business failures, negative equity and repossessions cannot understand why Parliament is not debating the Economic Crisis all day, every day - never mind why it has not debated it this year.

If the best they can offer the British people is a £3 per household cut as their solution to the Current Economic Crisis, that is a bit bizarre.

Since those first expressions of interest the position has become even more crucial with the Economic Crisis the country faces and the obvious impacts on our existing local economy.

For example, people who are facing unemployment in the Current Economic Crisis have had their information passed to private sector companies for assistance with getting back into work.

The Minister will know that local authorities at the moment, for one reason or other to do with the Economic Crisis, are under tremendous pressure.

Only five months have passed since we last had a debate entitled "Defence in the UK", but a great deal has happened in that time: there has been a grave worsening of the Economic Crisis; there has been the decision to issue a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq; and a new Us Administration have arrived, with a very different approach from their predecessor.

The Economic Crisis only adds to the imperative to deliver cost-effective and vital projects efficiently and to tight deadlines.

Only five months have passed since we last had a debate entitled "Defence in the UK", but a great deal has happened in that time: there has been a grave worsening of the Economic Crisis; there has been the decision to issue a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq; and a new Us Administration has arrived, with a very different approach from their predecessor.

The Economic Crisis poses a new threat to our national defence.

With the credit crunch, the Economic Crisis becomes a social crisis; we face 75,000 repossessions this year alone.

As there is no agreement among the world's major economies on the way forward in the Economic Crisis facing us, is it not rather a lot of taxpayers' money to be spending on the Prime Minister's desperate effort to save one or two seats at the next election?

We have called this debate to reaffirm our support for Africa at a time when the Economic Crisis is bringing acute challenges, and to set out our priorities for the next year.

I ask the Government during This Economic Crisis not to be tempted in any way to take the focus off tackling malaria through research and prevention.

The Economic Crisis does pose a challenge, and that challenge will not be met if we retreat from the ambitious goals that have been set.

I do not want to give a preview of my speech, but after dealing with the Economic Crisis I want to deal with what I think are the four critical themes of development policy: governance, wealth creation, conflict and climate change.

It is important at a time of Economic Crisis to reassert the fundamental importance of open trade.

It is he who urged the World Bank to create a vulnerability fund that will protect the poorest in the short term; he who will seek to ensure that IMF and World Bank reform reflect the needs of the developing world; and he who will seek agreement to ensure that we begin the process to complete Doha so that fair trade, not protectionism, is our response to the Current Economic Crisis.

This, of course, is based on figures taken from before the Recent Economic Crisis.

My hon. Friendthe Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) referred to an article by Robert Chote inThe Times on19 March, in which he said: "The biggest task for whoever is unfortunate enough to win the next general election will be to mop up the gallons of red ink spilt over the Government's finances by the Economic Crisis".

The G20 summit is an opportunity to see how other countries are dealing with the Economic Crisis, and who has made sure that their economy is in order in the past.

His response to the Economic Crisis has been to focus on creating the illusion of an activist Government.

Unless we establish the cause of the Current Economic Crisis, we will not be able to find a cure or a way of preventing a repetition of the problem.

Many of the problems we are experiencing in the Current Economic Crisis are partly attributable to the failures of the European Union.

Situations are developing all over the country that are of grave concern, but which, at the same time, are a reflection of the Economic Crisis that we are in and which we must do something about.

Although the crisis is global and there are definitely global aspects to the Economic Crisis we face, there is no doubt that there are also local and national aspects to it.

That organisation might sometimes be unpopular with people, but it has been very helpful and, during This Economic Crisis, it has been supporting jobs in the north-west.

The current economic maelstrom means that many businesses are experiencing great difficulties and are under enormous pressure to stay viable as they attempt to ride out the perfect storm of the Current Economic Crisis.

The reason is that having lost substantial revenues as a result of the Economic Crisis, we are still prepared to take the action necessary to help home owners, to help people into jobs, and to help businesses.

That has been the traditional Economic Crisis we have faced, but this current crisis is happening even when inflation is low and interest rates are low.

The Economic Crisis began in the financial sector, and I would imagine that most people would agree that we would be suffering a far worse situation had the Government not stepped in to rescue the banks.

In an Economic Crisis, it is possible to provide a fiscal stimulus, but nature does not provide bail-outs.

In countries across the world, because of This Economic Crisis, it will take far longer for deficits to come back into balance.

The Economic Crisis is unprecedented in many ways - its scale, its speed, its reach - so people are looking for something bold and distinctive from this Government.

Unfortunately, as has been acknowledged, no territory is immune from the effects of the Current Economic Crisis.

Because of the dimensions of Our Economic Crisis, as spelt out so honestly in the Budget yesterday, will my noble friend confirm that in this battle for the future of humanity, which is what this is, we must have a situation among all parties in this country that, whatever the economic pressures, priority must be given to projects of this kind, without which the economic problems today would seem small compared to the economic problems that would face us in the future?

In the Current Economic Crisis, one might have expected that directors would be volunteering to reduce their salaries in the same way that some of their employees are being urged to agree to reductions in their earnings to save their jobs.

The Prime Minister will leave Downing street having presided over the Worst Economic Crisis for more than 60 years, having left us with the worst borrowing figures in our history, and having wasted a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform our great public services.

I was very interested to see him quoted this week inThe Observer, which stated that he "has long supported both identity cards and the nuclear deterrent but said he could not justify to vulnerable constituents the respective £5 billion and £70 billion bills when basic public services were threatened by the Economic Crisis".

Although a difficult argument to win in Our Current Economic Crisis, we should consider the implications of pressure on this budget and look closely at the need to expand it.

We must expect, very probably, a rather disturbed society for a time, thanks to the Economic Crisis.

Talking about U-turns, this is the man who promised to support the Government through the Economic Crisis; within a few days, he had abandoned that promise with his U-turn.

The Economic Crisis has already highlighted the flaws in the global financial system, which we all recognise is in need of reform.

In a recession, a Budget should plot a clear path out of the Economic Crisis and prepare the economy for recovery.

We have led the way in calling for improved progress on the millennium development goals and in demanding that we do not forget the world's poorest, despite the Current Economic Crisis.

We have led the way in calling for improved progress on the millennium development goals and in demanding that we do not forget the world's poorest, despite the current Economic Crisis.

In the Current Economic Crisis speed is of the essence.

I start by reminding the House of just how long it was before the Government started to take action to deal with the Economic Crisis.

I began to get worried about the emerging Economic Crisis - I get worried only because when I was a young Peer in your Lordships' House, when no one would speak on economic affairs, I spoke, and I would say, "I am very worried that we now have a 16 per cent bank rate, which means that people are borrowing at 21 per cent; inflation is at 22 per cent".

Today, many people are routinely blamed for This Economic Crisis - investment bankers for greed, central bankers for being behind the curve, regulators for being asleep at the wheel, credit-rating agencies for giving too many triple-A ratings, even the public themselves for foolishly borrowing too much.

Today, many people are routinely blamed for this Economic Crisis - investment bankers for greed, central bankers for being behind the curve, regulators for being asleep at the wheel, credit-rating agencies for giving too many triple-A ratings, even the public themselves for foolishly borrowing too much.

In view of the Current Economic Crisis, it is worth the Government at least looking at taking the entire rail network back under their control.

I do not wish to stray too far from the subject, Sir Alan, but one issue that has emerged from the Economic Crisis is the need to broaden the base of British business, and manufacturing is important in that regard.

Many small businesses are finding the Current Economic Crisis very difficult.

Last December, as has been said, we were told that there would be a delay, and we knew that there was an Economic Crisis.

We will address this cut in support as constructively as we can, but it is a measure of how Difficult the Economic Crisis is making matters for DfID and for our aid projects.

Our motion is about the Economic Crisis facing our country, but I sense that it is not the House's preoccupation at this very moment.

It has been introduced as a key part of the Government's attempts to tackle the Economic Crisis and, even given that it is a money Bill, it is perhaps remarkable how few noble Lords have chosen to speak today.

Whether on the Economic Crisis that we all face, climate change or our future security, the Opposition's policies would lead us only to isolation.

They can deal with the Economic Crisis without legislation.

In past months, during This Economic Crisis, there have been elections in India, South Africa and New Zealand.

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord for tabling this important debate, especially at a time of Economic Crisis when some voices, even in your Lordships' House, are questioning the priority being given to creating a low-carbon economy.

The Recent Economic Crisis has added complexity to the decisions that we need to make and the actions that we need to take.

There is something slightly surreal about debating a Bill at a time of Economic Crisis that has the words "Economic Development" in its title but that does nothing to address business rates.

At a time of Economic Crisis, the one thing we ought not to be doing is adding to the enormous deficit that this country faces, which exceeds the entire budget of the Department, as well as the budgets of the defence system and the education system.

Furthermore, at a time of Economic Crisis, when many businesses are struggling to make ends meet, we foresee difficulties in enforcing a statutory right to an apprenticeship.

There are questions to be asked about whether the Current Economic Crisis makes this the right time to make the change mandatory.

That occurred even up to the edge and into the Current Economic Crisis.

That has occurred even up to the edge and into the Current Economic Crisis.

My Lords, the National Economic Council, or committee, which has brought us through This Economic Crisis, was called a national committee or council, and this is a parallel structure in which I have every confidence.

Particularly at a time of Economic Crisis, it is plausible to anticipate a lethal cocktail of increased alcohol consumption among consumers, combined with a stronger desire to purchase it cheaply.

That is why the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have worked with our international partners to ensure that we have a co-ordinated global response to the Economic Crisis.

However, we know also that, in the wake of the Economic Crisis, the next Government will have a major task on their hands to try to control public expenditure in such a fashion that restores some equilibrium to the nation's finances.

Is that part of the £10 billion package that the Government announced to deal with Our Economic Crisis and which Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition opposed?

That is particularly relevant in the context of the Current Economic Crisis.

The second argument that I have been hearing in opposition to a democratic election is that, because of the Economic Crisis, we somehow cannot let the public decide.

I am astonished that they have chosen such a subject for debate when the country, along with the rest of the world, faces the most serious financial and Economic Crisis in a generation.

I suggest that hon. Gentleman should have put down a motion asking us to compare how this Government have dealt with the Economic Crisis with how it has been dealt with by some of the countries in the arc of prosperity, of which we are all so fond.

My hon. Friend put to rest the idea that it is wrong to have an election during an Economic Crisis, referring to India, the USA, Canada and other places.

That is why we will carry on with delivering our policies to get the housing market going again, to build more social housing, to tackle the lack of confidence in business and to ensure that business is supported so that we can recover from This Economic Crisis brought about by the global financial collapse and move the country forward.

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