Business of the House

Andrew Jones Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I think I am right in saying that the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill contains clauses on the EHRC, so there will be an opportunity for the hon. Lady to say a few words about this matter when we debate that Bill on the first Monday when we return.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

Please may we have a debate on the progress being made in tackling the deficit, and has the Leader of the House found time to review the International Monetary Fund scorecard given to the UK in the late 1970s?

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. In my first Parliament, the IMF visited this country and the report it produced then sharply contrasts with the report it has just produced. Speaking from memory, the then Chancellor, Denis Healey, had to put to his Cabinet colleagues a freeze on all public sector capital investment that was not already committed, a freeze on all uprating of benefits and substantial reductions in capital expenditure. One simply has to contrast what the IMF said then, two years into the term of a Labour Government, with the benediction it gave to the policies we have been adopting when it came here this week.