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AMENDMENT OF THE LAW

The hon. Gentleman’s memory and mine clearly are at odds. My memory of what happened in 1974 is closer to the analysis made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley). At that time I was trying to do some building works in a flat in Edinburgh, when the whole plaster allocation for Edinburgh was four tonnes for a year. At the same time, the whole of the wood supply for Scotland for a year went up in flames on a wharf in Glasgow. I would suggest to the hon. Gentleman that the 1974 collapse had considerably more to do with the shortage of commodities than with a Budget the previous year. The problem was far too deep.