International Monetary Fund (Letter of Intent)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 5 December 1967.

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Photo of Mr Woodrow Wyatt Mr Woodrow Wyatt , Bosworth 12:00, 5 December 1967

I will not give way again. The last intervention which I allowed was not very fruitful, and only underlined the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Dickens) had just come to a conclusion to which I came many years ago.

The reason that I say that the Letter of Intent does not go far enough is that everyone, whether in the City of London or in overseas capitals knows that the intention to spend £200 million a year less in Government expenditure is a very bad joke, because it is not a reduction in the amount which will be spent next year as against this year, but only a reduction in an intention to spend a great deal more next year than this. So there will be no reduction in Government spending next year at all, but a vast increase, quite apart from the Letter of Intent. My hon. Friends must face the fact that, until we start operating this country on sensible lines, people abroad will not have confidence in us.

The abolition of prescription charges was the most expensive memorial ever made to any one man. I refer to the late Aneurin Bevan. We all know that the reason we now spend as a Government £40 million a year on prescriptions which we were not spending before is because of the argument which Aneurin Bevan had in 1951 with Hugh Gaitskell about teeth and spectacles. This is no way in which to run a country. Everyone in the country knows that it was not unreasonable to ask people to pay 2s. for a prescription—