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Fiscal Responsibility Bill

How kind of the right hon. Gentleman to say so. Others have judged otherwise, though. I shall turn to the historical backdrop to the elements in the clause. Others have referred to the fiscal rules of the late 1990s, which stayed in being until the onset of the crisis. As has been accurately described by the hon. Member for Chichester, those rules were first tweaked and bent to show apparent continuing adherence, and then abandoned when the crisis hit full force. The question of why the rules were there in the first place touches on part of the reason why we are having this debate now. First, there was a short-term political issue: the first Labour Government for 18 years needed to produce some evidence of solidity and a framework for decision-making that could reassure outside observers about how they would behave.