"Mr Speaker, I am sure you will allow me to extend my congratulations to the Chancellor. He will remember that I welcomed him as a very fresh-faced Back Bencher to the 1997 Budget, when he already showed great promise, which he has more than fulfilled now. Does he agree that …..." Geoffrey Robinson - View Speech
"Like other hon. Members, I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate and on keeping this very important issue live. He must be aware that there will never be a right time in the Government finances to put this matter right. The Treasury may have made a small budgetary …..." Geoffrey Robinson - View Speech
"I shall confine myself to the reduced speaking time, Mr Deputy Speaker, and in doing so, I shall pay only short tributes to those who have secured this timely and necessary debate. I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) has followed this issue—as …..." Geoffrey Robinson - View Speech
"I know that the hon. Gentleman did not mean to interject any sort of difference between party or Government, but what he said was not right. The lack of regulation and the failure of the policies happened under a Conservative Government’s watch. We must get away from mentioning Governments, as …..." Geoffrey Robinson - View Speech
"The Chancellor is asking us to be honest and state our position. Will he tell us what he said today? A few moments ago, he clearly said—we can all check Hansard tomorrow—that he had not gone any slower on reducing the deficit. He said that word for word. We are …..." Geoffrey Robinson - View Speech
"If the Chancellor wanted to say 2017-18, why did he not say 2017-18, instead of using this convoluted third year of a five-year rolling average? By definition, we never get to it—that is probably what his policy really is...." Geoffrey Robinson - View Speech
"It is always a great pleasure to follow the former Chancellor, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), and to see him so loyally supporting the present Chancellor. He does so against all the evidence, because I cannot think of a single target of any significance—apart from …..." Geoffrey Robinson - View Speech
"I beg his pardon—the Chancellor, soon to be shadow Chancellor.
It is worth thinking briefly about why we are having this debate at all. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), I do not often agree with the TaxPayers Alliance, but on this I …..." Geoffrey Robinson - View Speech
“This is a political gimmick of the most transparent kind”.
The Chancellor wants us to fall for his political gimmick. We are voting for it because we are not going to fall into the silly trap that he has tried to lay …..." Geoffrey Robinson - View Speech