Orders of the Day — Economic Affairs

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 7 July 1970.

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Photo of Mr Roy Jenkins Mr Roy Jenkins , Birmingham Stechford 12:00, 7 July 1970

As I said before, it was unprecedented, unwarranted and deliberately scaremongering for the right hon. Gentleman to have used the word "devaluation".

I do not find this incident any the more creditable in view of the most extraordinary couple of paragraphs which I read last week in the "Men and Matters" column of the Financial Times. That paper stated on 1st July: It is worth noting"— referring to this document containing the devaluation statement— that the whole matter was a mistake. What happened was that Tory Central Office decided that it ought to put out a reasoned and rather academic written statement about the economic situation to prove that it had an alternative strategy on inflation". I can see that that needed proving—and, of course, two days before polling day was a very natural time to choose for rather academic statements. I continue the quotation: But it was thought to be of such purely technical interest, especially to the political and lobby correspondents who attended Mr. Heath's Press Conference, that it was simply handed out at the end, and Mr. Heath made no reference to it. We know how academically and technically the Tory Press treated the matter. "Devaluation with Labour: That's Heath's Warning" said a Daily Mail banner headline the next morning. I am sorry for the right hon. Gentleman that Lord Rothermere should have been so insensitive as to treat his academic and technical essay in such a way. The fact of the matter is that there never was and never has been a question of a national emergency, and the right hon. Gentleman knows that perfectly well.