The shadow chancellor has called for an end to the credit culture with a warning that the cult of borrowing is damaging Britain's long term economic interests.

Oliver Letwin warned that the current imbalance between savings and borrowing is unsustainable.

"We need to ask ourselves if the balance between households savings and debt is sustainable not just in the months ahead but also over the years and decade," he wrote in the Times.

Whilst he warned it would be wrong to panic about personal debt levels, the shadow chancellor cautions against complacency.

"We need to look beneath the aggregate figures on debt and realise that they may conceal problems for particular households," he said.

Addressing the Centre for Policy Studies, Letwin was set to highlight a series of Tory proposals aimed at encouraging consumers to start saving.

He called for a three pronged policy - setting out plans for property ownership, decent pension provision and a revival of the savings culture.

"Without these policies, Britain will continue to move along a trajectory that takes us away from a culture of savings and towards a culture of dependency. We need, over a generation, to change course," he wrote ahead of the address.

"We need, not overnight but gradually and sustainably, to begin to make Britain a saving society, a society characterised by the prudence and independence of its citizens."