We are faced with the Gravest Crisis the Empire has ever been called upon to face.

It may seem odd that at a time like the present, when we are faced with probably the Gravest Crisis this country has ever known and when the best blood of the nation is being poured out, I should appear to plead for the life of a few traitors.

I should like also to recapture if possible a sense of urgency which should be in the minds of us all at this, perhaps the Gravest Crisis this country has ever found itself in.

The result is that the Gravest Crisis with which the German High Command was faced since the Battle of Stalingrad is now eased, is now over, and the Germans can transfer first-class troops from the Italian front at a critical stage of the war with Russia against the Red Army.

He has talked about the Gravest Crisis that has confronted the nation for 20 years.

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington talked about the Gravest Crisis.

We are told almost every day by a spokesman of the Government that the Gravest Possible Crisis facing the country arises from the balance of payments situation.

Yesterday saw, I suppose, the Gravest Crisis that the British ports have ever faced.

Our debate this afternoon takes place in the Gravest Crisis for the building industry since the Second World War.

All the speakers in the debate have agreed with the Chancellor at least on one point, in that he admitted for the first time that this country faces the Gravest Crisis we have had since the war.

We face what the Prime Minister three weeks ago called the Gravest Crisis since the war.

On 18th December, The Guardian, which is no friend of the Opposition - it has never asked anyone to vote Labour to my recollection, and is not doing it now - said that:from the point of view of national unity, in what the Chancellor acknowledged as the Gravest Crisis since the war, they have got it wrong.

The election was fought by all parties in agreement that we face the Gravest Crisis since 1945, but on reading the Queen's Speech nobody would feel so.

The Leader of the Opposition spoke of the Gravest Crisis since 1945.

The hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe), who spoke for the Liberal Party, rather spoiled what was perhaps a good rather than an average speech by too-constant repetition of clichés about "the Gravest Crisis since 1945", or 1931 or whatever it is.

It is not surprising that the public are a little sceptical about this talk when the same people who told us a year ago that we were facing the problems of success and told us two years ago that joining the EEC would solve all our economic problems are now saying that we are facing the Gravest Crisis that we have ever known.

We are debating this motion -which was so carefully and compre hensively drafted by my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave) and so beautifully read out by yourself, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in a manner of which the late Sir Henry Irving would not have been ashamed - in the context of the Gravest Crisis that the arts in Britain have faced since the war.

Bearing in mind the words of her right hon. Friend the Prime Minister when he said that we were facing the Gravest Crisis since the war, does the right hon. Lady think it right in present economic circumstances that more than £250 million a year should go in subsidies to families with incomes of more than £50 a week?

They hear many making speeches which give the impression that we are now facing - as indeed I think we are in many respects - the Gravest Crisis this country has faced since the inter-war period.

indeed, the Gravest Crisis that it has faced since 1965, when it was substantially reduced in size as a result of a deliberate plan of action.

I do not minimise the difficulties, any more than the Labour Party did in the manifesto of October 1974, when we said that the country faced the Gravest Crisis that it had faced for many years and added that we did not offer people an improved standard of life.

When will the Secretary of State and his colleagues wake up to the Gravest Crisis faced by our Armed Forces since the war?

Quite apart from the difficulties that I have outlined, is it possible to imagine a more unsuitable moment to embark on the inquiry, during one of the gravest crises, if not the Gravest Crisis, that this country has faced since the war?

Up to that point the debate had been depressing, because despite the overwhelming realities of the Gravest Crisis facing any heavy industry in Europe for many years, which is the crisis now facing the whole of the European steel industry, we had a worrying upsurge of narrow-minded nationalism from several Labour Members against the entire Community interest, and against our interests as members of that Community.

He is now attempting to wash his hands completely of the Gravest Crisis that Scottish education has ever faced.

That is the Gravest Crisis.

In my view - in this case, my view accords even with those of some who are opposed to the Community and have long been so - there is no doubt whatever that the Community faces the Gravest Crisis, which, if it is not resolved within at least a year or a couple of years, or if clear guidelines for reform are not laid down, could lead to the complete break-up of the Community.

This is a genuine emergency about the Gravest Crisis to face Scottish education in its history.

Many hon. Members have said that this is the Gravest Crisis that we have faced since 1945, and I share that view.

He went with other members of the farming community to see my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who expressed to John not only his concern and sympathy, but his absolute determination and the Government's determination to do everything that was needed - not just for one year, but for the next five years if necessary - to ensure that the agricultural community came through the Gravest Crisis that we have ever faced.

I appreciate that point, Mr. Speaker, but in your normal discussions with the representatives of the usual channels will you, as a new and respected Speaker, point out that the fact that neither the Prime Minister nor the Deputy Prime Minister will be present to answer a debate on the Gravest Crisis facing the country is a slight injustice - not to say a grave insult - to the House?

British farmers are now facing what anyone with a reasonable turn of mind - whatever his or her view on the Bill - would recognise as by far the Gravest Crisis that has faced British agriculture and this country's rural economy for at least half a century.

At this point I turn to the Gravest Crisis facing the poorest nations and that is the HIV/AIDs pandemic, which of course afflicts women and girls even more desperately than men and boys.

Nobody enjoys parliamentary knockabout more than I do, but the country faces the Gravest Crisis since May 1940.

Is the Leader of the House not the slightest little bit embarrassed to be scrabbling around, trying to find things for us to do, when the Government face the Gravest Crisis since the 1930s?