in the financial dailies city am and the financial times gummer has called for swedish style fiscal rules. while other mps argued for a 'deficit ceiling', gummer argued instead that the government should change the way it sets budgets, ensuring a budget surplus over the medium term. to this end, in the 2012-13 session of parliament he introduced a private members' bill titled the 'public debt management bill', the aim of which was to introduce rule whereby the chancellor of the exchequer must ensure that the budget is in surplus by at least 1% of over the course of each business cycle. the bill was not taken forward, although in 2015 rules along similar lines, with the office for budget responsibility involved in the way gummer's bill suggested, were adopted by the government.