The Financial Statement

Orders of the Day — Ways and Means – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 19 March 1968.

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I turn now to the narrower field of Government finance, in order to fulfil my traditional duty to give the House the figures for this year's prospective out-turn and the estimates for the coming year. But first I should remind the House that this year, as a result of the National Loans Act, we are making changes in the conventional Government accounts and the layout of the Financial Statement. These changes are described in more detail in the foreword to the Statement. Although the new accounting arrangements do not come into operation until 1st April, 1968, the figures for 1967–68 in the Financial Statement have been adjusted so as to bring them as far as possible on to the new basis and thus facilitate comparisons between the figures for 1967–68 and the estimates for 1968–69.