§ I begin with the out-turn of the financial year that has just closed. In his Budget of a year ago, my predecessor estimated that the total expenditure would amount to 5,756,000,000, of which:.1,900,000,000 represented Vote of Credit expenditure. Since overseas disinvestment—an ugly word—was expected to provide £600,000,000 in the year, he was left with a total of £5,156,000,000 requiring what I may call domestic finance. Towards that sum it was estimated that the year's revenue would provide 2,907,000,000, leaving £2,249,000,000 to he covered by borrowings at home. On the confident assumption that private savings would show an appreciable increase over the previous year, he concluded that we should be able to borrow that large sum without departing from the sound lines which the country had hitherto followed. The Committee 651 will be glad to know that, in the result, the past year's finance made a better showing than Sir Kingsley Wood then expected.