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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Thank you for your ruling on that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The debate was opened by the Children, Schools and Families Secretary, who plainly came here thinking that this was a debate about education and schools policy; and it is supposed to be wound up by a Treasury Minister, who so far has not appeared. That is obviously not the main point of the debate, and I shall try to avoid it. However, I am one of the minority of senior Members who is not retiring at the coming election—if my constituents are prepared to consent—and in all my years in the House of Commons I do not remember a single debate on Government business in which the Minister who proposed to wind up failed to turn up. Perhaps the Chief Secretary intends to come after his dinner or his coffee break.