The reason I advance why this Order to increase the limit from £5,000 to £7,000 should not be passed is that it is irrelevant to the present situation, that the Crisis in the Building Societies has been caused by the Government themselves and that the Economic Secretary ought to have said a great deal more about the pressure being put on the building societies from another direction as well as referring in the most casual way to the fact that at the moment they have ample funds available for this apparently very trivial increase in the number of loans that they make.

The reason for the Crisis in the Building Societies and for the withdrawal of £400 million was the spending spree of 1968, with the complete lack of confidence in savings created by the Government's economic policy.