Deficit Reduction

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, they will and do appear in tables in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasts and records of sales. For example, the sales of fixed assets are dealt with in table 2.2, and the sales of financial assets when they come in are—

The noble Lord, Lord Peston, shakes his head, but I am looking at page 21 of the OBR’s Budget 2010 supplementary material which has tables. There are not yet financial sale numbers to go in for future years, but table 2.2 is there on page 21.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, will the Minister ensure that he gets his timing right on selling the shares in the banks, and not make the same mistake as Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, who sold most of our gold stock for $280 an ounce when the price is now $1,300 an ounce?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I do not want to give any hostages to fortune, but it would be difficult for any Chancellor to get it as disastrously wrong as that Chancellor did on the gold sales.