"My Lords, it is difficult to imagine a more difficult set of circumstances in which any Chancellor has had to frame a financial Statement to Parliament. Whatever the decisions, inevitably there will be predictable criticism from all sides: taxes are too high, borrowing could be a bit more, spending greater …..." Lord Lamont of Lerwick - View Speech
"My Lords, is the potential booby-trap in LDIs not the liquidity mismatch between the time it takes to sell the assets of pension funds and the demands of the hedge, which requires the margins to be met on the same day in cash? Is that not a strong argument for …..." Lord Lamont of Lerwick - View Speech
"My Lords, while it is true that the Syriza Government have made some bad policy decisions and have at times been very provocative, is it not also true that on one fundamental point they are right—in 2010 there should have been a much more extensive write-off of the Greek debt? …..." Lord Lamont of Lerwick - View Speech
"My Lords, I am a bit of an interloper in this debate, not having been a member of the committee. I congratulate the committee on the report and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, on having chaired the committee. The report is useful and interesting. For those of us who …..." Lord Lamont of Lerwick - View Speech
"Of course you can. You can be against transferring fiscal authority out of the UK but say that the only way in which you can make a monetary union work is for you to transfer it out of your country to a central organisation. There is no contradiction in that …..." Lord Lamont of Lerwick - View Speech
"My Lords, although we all appreciate that exceptionally low interest rates have been necessary to shore up the finances of borrowers, particularly mortgage holders, does my noble friend recognise that this has been an extremely difficult time for savers? It is a great pity that during a period in which, …..." Lord Lamont of Lerwick - View Speech
"My Lords, perhaps the Minister will comment on one aspect of the asset purchase scheme—quantitative easing—about which there has been some argument. When the original document setting up the asset purchase scheme was signed, and it was made consistent with the Bank of England Act 1998, was it set down …..." Lord Lamont of Lerwick - View Speech
"My Lords, I join with other Members of the House in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, on his maiden speech from the Front Bench. Like other noble Lords on this side, I am delighted to find that he is not entirely still under the spell of his former distinguished …..." Lord Lamont of Lerwick - View Speech
"No. President Roosevelt initiated back to work programmes—that is true—but the private sector, the economy, was not generating growth. If the noble Lord, who is a very eminent historian, wishes to doubt that, just let him read the Morganthau diaries, because they are full of deep disillusionment about the pointlessness …..." Lord Lamont of Lerwick - View Speech