This is the parliamentary question time for questions to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Members of the Commons may question the Chancellor on any issue relating to his department. Each member is limited to one question per week.

This House recognises Commoncold0 as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and requests that he answers all questions posed to him.

This House recognises Inevitable Sir William Buttersworth as the Shadow Chancellor, and as such grants him the right to ask six questions per week.

The government may only be asked to answer one question at a time - no new questions may be submitted until the previous one has been answered. If the government does not answer, action may be taken by the speaker of the commons.

I therefore open this session with the following question:

Will the Chancellor please tell us of his department's aims for this session of parliament?

Mr Speaker, this term my department intends to restore and maintain the balance of payments in the Ostentian budget, through rises in taxation and cuts in spending. The policies of the government shall be aimed at maintaining the current level of economic performance: we cannot realistically hope to restore the Economy rating to 70% or above in the immediate future. We will however intervene to ensure that the economy rating does not fall below 60% - if it does, then we will take action to immediately reverse such a decline.

I thank the minister for his answer and open this session to the house.

What do you intend to do about HartfordFinance and other failing investment banks?

HartfordFinance was dealt with by the previous government, and should another bank find itself in a similar position I imagine that our response would be the same.