Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 5:18 pm on 17 February 1997.
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept one point: that the crisis was brought about by the Government's handling of the issue in the first 24 hours? Anyone involved in crisis management in large companies knows that if a crisis is not handled in the first 10 minutes, or at the latest 10 hours after it occurred, it will get out of control. In March, the Government introduced the crisis and failed to manage it.