§ Mr. Watkinsonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the level of savings coming into the building societies, the insurance companies, the pension funds and other savings institutions, excluding the banks, in 1975 and 1974; and what was the borrowing requirement in those years.
§ Mr. Denzil Davies,pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 15th November 1976; Vol. 919, c. 374], gave the following information:
The table below shows the net increase in amounts deposited with building societies, the National Savings Bank, trustee savings bank and other national savings, and also the net increase in life assurance and pension funds, after the deduction of administrative costs, tax on investment income and the cost of pensions and other benefits paid.
£ million 1974 1975 Building societies 1,993 4,172 Life assurance and pension funds 3,490 4,331 National Savings: Trustee Savings Bank: Ordinary Department 132 150 Special Investment Department 37 165 National Savings Bank: Ordinary Account –2 10 Investment Account 25 44 Other –18 341 The figures above of the increase in net amounts deposited with building societies, the savings banks and of other 512W national savings, include interest accrued but not paid out to depositors. Separate figures for life assurance and pension funds are not available.
The borrowing requirement of the public sector and its components are as follows:—
£ million 1974 1975 Borrowing from outside the public sector: Central Government 3,536 8,387 Local authorities 2,118 1,645 Public corporations 708 470 Total public sector borrowing requirement 6,362 10,502 Alternative presentation: Total borrowing: Local authorities 3,377 2,810 Public corporations 1,452 2,625 Central Government, other than for on-lending to local authorities and public corporations 1,533 5,067 6,362 10,502 The source for all the estimates is the October issue of Financial Statistics.