Orders of the Day — Economic Affairs

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 30 November 1976.

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Photo of Mr Denis Healey Mr Denis Healey , Leeds East 12:00, 30 November 1976

I shall take the advice, as always, of my hon. Friend. Perhaps not "as always" but one time out of four or five.

The one thing that is absolutely clear about the right hon. Lady is that she believes in dodging issues that are liable to cause her trouble in keeping together the two wings of her party. What is more serious than this type of equivocation is her refusal to be honest with the country about the consequences of the massive cuts in public expenditure to which she has committed herself. When she was asked by Mr. Julian de Havilland on 4th October whether she would accept a large increase in unemployment as a result of her massive cuts in the public services, she replied: No. A very, very small increase would be incurred. She went further the same night in telling Mr. David Holmes: We've been through cuts before. Don't you remember the last Labour Chancellor that put on cuts, Roy Jenkins? They didn't hurt that much. Let me tell the right hon. Lady to take the advice of the right hon. Member for Sidcup, who pointed out to her at Brighton that cuts do hurt, that civil servants have wives and families, too. To pretend in public on television that the sort of cuts—[Interruption.] I have always said that cuts are painful. I have never denied it. To pretend that cuts on a vastly greater scale, such as the right hon. Lady insists upon continually, will not hurt is a dishonesty that disgraces her present role as Leader of the Conservative Party.

The plain fact is that the transient impression that the right hon. Lady has a policy, which was so sedulously cultivated by the professional image-makers at Brighton a few weeks ago, is already fading into thin air, like the equally transient impression of her reconciliation with the right hon. Member for Sidcup. I ask the House to reject the right hon. Lady's amendment with the contempt it deserves.