Former MP for Edinburgh Central
When the Chancellor of the Exchequer addressed the House on Thursday afternoon it was only possible to offer a few general observations on the statement. Since that time we have had the opportunity of considering the speech in detail and of studying the White Papers which have been issued, and I think the House, this afternoon, will agree that irrespective of party feeling this is perhaps one...
I am sure that the Noble Lord would be the last person to misrepresent, me. I summarised what I believed to be the inevitable Conservative argument, and this was endorsed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill).
I am very sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but the House must understand the facts. It was the duty of the Cabinet Sub-Committee to review the whole of the May Report, but there never was any recommendation to the Cabinet as a whole. I am very sorry to have to make the statement, but from the start we were never committed to anything at all.
indicated dissent.
I think the House will agree that there is no Member who deplores this development more than I do. [Interruption.] I deplore it on the, personal side, but I want to ask whether the Prime Minister all along did not make it perfectly clear that in any statement which he made to the representatives of other political parties and to the representatives of the Bank of England, he was conveying...
The Committee will agree that I am not usually the centre of such excitement, and I rise this afternoon, after the statement which has been made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, not to make a full review of the Budget proposals, because that will be undertaken in a day or two when the detailed Debate begins, but to offer one or two general observations regarding our opinion on this side of...
I have the clearest recollection of the speech, but in any event I gather that it meant that the great bulk of the economies to be proposed by the Government had been approved of or agreed to by us before we left office—approved and adopted. The precise figure was given a day or two ago by the Leader of the Opposition. There was a figure of £56,000,000, but that figure was never finally...
This is only a very brief preliminary statement. I am not surprised at the excitement in the House, or even at the interruptions, because I am well aware of the tension, under which we are all working at the present time, but I beg hon. Members to bear our side of the case. The Prime Minister and others have objected to the suggestion that, by a temporary suspension of our Sinking Fund, we...
