PUBLIC REVENUE AND CONSOLIDATED FUND CHARGES BILL. (Hansard, 2 June 1854)

THE CHANCELLOR OF TIIE EXCHEQUER
said, that as this Bill, though it would, he believed, involve no difference of opinion, was one of great importance in connection with our fiscal arrangements, he was desirous of stating to the Committee its general frame-work, outline, and purpose. In the first place, he begged the Committee to observe that this Bill must be considered in conjunction with certain estimates which had within the last ten days for the first time been laid on the table of the House—he meant estimates of the charges of collecting the revenue in the various great departments. There was, however, one exception to this which the Committee should bear in mind, because the charges with which the collection of the land revenue of the Crown was burdened were not made the subject of any estimate. The reason was very simple:—the House of Commons, or, as he might say, the Legislature—were not in full and absolute possession of this land revenue, or of the estates from which it proceeded; the estates remained the estates of the Crown, and the country had the proceeds of those estates during the life of Her Majesty, upon the specific terms of the Civil List Act. That Act constituted a compact between Parliament and the Crown, and under the terms of that compact the expense of the management of the Crown estates was a deduction made anterior to the payment of the proceeds into the Exchequer. The estimates which had been presented related to what might be called the three great spending departments of the State—the Customs, the Board of Inland Revenue, and the Post Office; and they embraced together a sum of, he 1259 thought, not far short of 4,000,000l. of money. The whole sum of 4,000,000l. did not, he thought, appear in the Estimates, but the gross amount included drawbacks and repayments, which could not be made a subject of estimate. The Committee would perceive that there were certain schedules appended to the present Bill; and in relation to them he would enumerate what were the different descriptions of charges with which the Government had to deal in endeavouring to make this step towards a state of uniformity and simplicity in the mode of handling and accounting for public money—a State which he would not say would be realised by this Bill, but towards which they were, he trusted, approaching. The first class of charges, which was comprised in schedule A, consisted of certain charges and payments upon the revenues of Customs and Excise; that was to say, of certain charges which had been heretofore defrayed, not out of moneys which had cone into the Exchequer, but out of those various branches of the revenue before it reached the Exchequer. The Committee should understand that all these charges had been so defrayed with perfect regularity, because they had been defrayed under the distinct authority of Acts of Parliament. It was therefore no correction of an abuse, but it was an improvement in our system of public accounts which the present Bill proposed to effect; the Bill providing that, instead of paying these charges out of the revenue before it was received into the Exchequer, they should become charges on the Consolidated Fund, and, of course, the moneys now applied to pay them would henceforward be paid into the Consolidated Fund in the first instance. One small class of charges, at present defrayed out of the revenue before it reached the Exchequer, was not comprised in schedule A, and the Government proposed to leave it in its present condition, and for an obvious reason. The class to which he alluded consisted of a very limited number of pensions, which under various authorities, were paid to the representatives of various families, who inherited them from times comparatively remote. With respect to these pensions, it appeared clear—at least, this had been the view taken by Her Majesty's Government, and he thought it would be approved by the House—that the best course would be to buy them up and so dispose of them. He expected that, if 1260 judiciously effected, this operation would be rather a profitable arrangement to the public than otherwise, and it would rid them of an anomaly attended with some inconvenience. A certain portion of these pensions had been already bought up; in point of fact, he might say that, substantially, the whole matter was concluded so far as regarded the most important pensions; but, from one cause or another, the arrangement in several cases was nut yet ready to take effect. Until it did take effect—that was provisionally—he proposed to leave these pensions precisely as they were at present, inasmuch as the Government did not look upon them as permanent charges, and it was not worth while to enter upon new arrangements respecting them. The next great description of charge with which this Bill dealt was that of the expenses of the collection of the revenue. The very large outlay of public money under this head—amounting, he believed, to nearly 4,000,000l.—which had heretofore been exempted from the control of the House, would, from the present year forwards, be brought regularly under its control and cognisance. It would he, however, but fair to make two observations on this subject. In the first place, the form of the estimate had been prepared for the present year in the manner that appeared to the Government, upon consideration, to be the best, and he had no doubt that, even if hon. Gentlemen thought it capable of improvement, it would be received with indulgence; but, of course, if it could be improved, either in form or substance, the Government would willingly co-operate in making any improvement upon it that might be devised. In the second place, if it should be found that these estimates added materially to the time which was now occupied in Committee of Supply, a serious public inconvenience might arise, and the House would have to consider of some means of meeting it; but he did not at present intend to propose any arrangement with respect to that subject, as it would be better that we should feel our way a little at first. The great practical advantage which he expected would arise from bringing these estimates before the House was, that a new security would thus be afforded for the performance of its duty by the Executive Government. Although he did not think it possible for the House, on ordinary occasions, to enter into minute details; yet the salutary result which he 1261 anticipated from voting money for the public service in this particular form was, that it would keep the different departments of the State up to their work. He believed that this was the important result which would be effected by the change he proposed to make, and upon which he begged to congratulate the House, and especially that hon. Gentleman (Mr. Williams) who had so distinguished himself by his patient recommendations in former years upon this subject, when it was less popular than at present. He had now spoken of the various descriptions of charges with which the Government proposed directly to deal; first, the various charges imposed on the revenue by Act of Parliament, which would be carried to the Consolidated Fund; secondly, the expenses of the collection of the revenue, which would be carried to the votes; and thirdly, the pensions, which would remain at present as they were, as he expected shortly to get rid of them altogether. But, as they had been led in the course of this operation to carry certain charges to the Consolidated Fund, they had thought it was their duty, as a part of the operation, to institute, as far as it was in the discretion of the Treasury to institute, a revision of the charges already upon the Consolidated Fund—for it was his strong opinion that there was no matter in which this house had been more apt to be led into laxity in the discharge of its duty than in that of laying upon the Consolidated Fund charges which it ought not to bear. The practical consequence of their doing so was, that those charges were placed, in some measure, beyond the control of the Treasury, they were forgotten by this House, and there was a great deal of neglect and abuse connected with this part of the public service. He had no proposal to make upon that subject at present, but he thought it would not be a bad arrangement if some mode could be devised by which the House could ensure a periodical attention to the state of the charges on the Consolidated Fund. In many cases the question of whether a particular charge ought to be laid on the Consolidated Fund or presented to the House in the Estimates was a political question of great importance. He would refer as instances to two charges—both from Ireland—the charges connected with the Board of Charitable Bequests, and also to those connected with the College of Maynooth—obviously constituting cases with respect to which it was a most important matter, of high poli- 1262 tical concern, whether they should be discussed in the Votes or laid upon the Consolidated Fund. He considered that he should have been going beyond the limits of his duty in connection with one public department, if he had proposed by this measure to interfere with any great political questions, and, therefore, in the case of charges involving any great political question, or appearing to involve a question of good faith and of public contract, in which vested interests, which might fairly be so called, were concerned, he had left upon the Consolidated Fund whatever he had found upon it. He might also advert, under this head, to charges of the kind of the salaries of Judges. Of course, with respect to the Judges of Westminster Hall, he imagined that no one, considering the important position they occupied as great constitutional officers, would wish to see their salaries brought into the Votes; but with respect to minor Judges, although there were already certain cases in which their salaries were voted by this House, yet he thought the question was not one that ought to be dealt with incidentally, and as a matter merely of fiscal arrangement; and, therefore, as a general rule, he had left upon the Consolidated Fund all the salaries of Judges which he had found there, although he did not propose that certain salaries of Judges which he had not found there should be placed upon it. There were, however, certain classes of officers who discharged duties that might be called judicial, such as revising barristers, whose salaries it was proposed to take from the Consolidated Fund and place in the Votes. Although the salaries of Judges would be left upon the Consolidated Fund, all the collateral, incidental, subordinate expenses of courts of justice, great and small, they proposed to bring into the Votes—for there was no department in which the control of the Treasury, apart from that of the House, would be weaker and more ineffective than in this. It was, therefore, desirable that the control of the House should be brought to bear upon them. This was the principle upon which the Government had proceeded in the present Bill; they had dealt in the manner that reason and convenience appeared to dictate with respect to those descriptions of charges with which they were obliged to deal; and as the state of the charges upon the Consolidated Fund necessarily came under their review, in so doing they had so far made a revision of those charges 1263 as they could make such a revision a matter of fiscal arrangement. The Bill, however, was not intended to alter the actual course of the public disbursements, although it altered the machinery of the public accounts. He now alluded to the matter of provincial payments towards the expenses of collecting the revenue out of funds which were locally collected. They did not propose to make any change in that respect. For example, under one authority or another, the Collector of the Customs at Liverpool at present defrayed, out of the revenue he collected there, both the expenses of the Customs' establishment and other public expenses, such as half-pay, pensions, &c., before it arrived in London; and they did not propose to alter the system, as it would be both an inconvenience and a retrograde step instead of advancing, if they had the money after it was collected transmitted to head quarters, in order that it might then be retransmitted to the provinces. The intention of the arrangement was this—that, although the disbursement would take place as it did now, it would be subject to exactly the same system of account. The account would be made up precisely as it was for all other voted services. He might compare it with the great number of services, the expenses of were necessarily defrayed in the Colonies by the Commissariat before Exchequer credits had been issued for them; those services were still just as much the subjects of vote in that House as if they had been defrayed by Exchequer grants, but the principle of account was applied to them. With this general explanation he trusted the Bill would obtain the approbation of the House.

MR. HUME
said, the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman was for the present extremely satisfactory; and he was glad to find that the present Government had yielded to the opinions expressed by the House, that the whole revenue ought to be paid into the Exchequer. He trusted that next year the House would be able to revise all the complicated accounts placed upon the Consolidated Fund. He differed from the right hon. Gentleman as to the Crown lands. He thought that by agreement with Her Majesty they were as much placed under the control of the public as the Post Office or the Customs. As for the pensions, the sooner they were cleared away the better. He would suggest that these accounts be referred to a Select Committee of the House, for unless they 1264 were submitted to examination and report, the plan would lead to comparatively little good. That course would be perfectly satisfactory, and would greatly save the time of the House. Upon the whole, he congratulated the House upon the progress that had been achieved. They now saw a beginning made towards placing in the hand of Parliament a complete control over the expenditure of the country, and he hoped that in a year or two hence the same system would be extended and perfected.

§ MR. GLYN
begged to express his acknowledgments to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the introduction of this measure. He had always been surprised that a matter which seemed so simple and easy had in previous years been so strongly resisted by the Treasury; and he had been only surprised—as long as he had been in Parliament—that the subject to which it related had ever been a disputed question. As the right hon. Gentleman had undertaken these duties in adjusting the fiscal arrangements of the country, would he allow him (Mr. Glyn) to point out another step that might be taken with great public advantage? They had heard a great deal, and perhaps too much lately, respecting the state of the public balances in the Bank of England; and the fallacy which had so generally prevailed as to the large advances which were supposed to be made to the Government had turned out to be almost nothing, and hardly worthy of any comment whatever. It appeared to him that for several years past the financial policy of the Government had always been to have a surplus revenue over the expenditure, in order that at no period should there be any necessity for large advances from the Bank. But the possibility of any advance being required could only arise from the want of adjustment between the receipts and expenditure of the country. Previous to the year 1844 or 1845, the periodical payments of the public revenue were two in a year; but the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Goulbourn) then introduced a change by spreading the payments over four periods in the year. Still that was not so great an alteration as the amounts of the Government required; and if the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer could only manage to throw the payments more equally over the year, so as to make them tally with the receipts, nothing could be more calculated 1265 to relieve the circulation of the country, or to prevent all the chances of pressure upon the Bank; this would be one of the most important steps that had ever been taken to ensure the financial prosperity of the country.

§ MR. W. WILLIAMS
considered that the measure now introduced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer was one of the most important financial reforms ever submitted to Parliament. It had frequently been brought forward before, but it had always been opposed by the Government until the right hon. Gentleman acceded to office. This Bill contained fifty-seven items, most of which related to Government departments; and hitherto the expenditure in them had been entirely without the sanction or even the cognisance of the House. The right hon. Gentleman appeared to apprehend that these estimates might occupy too much of the time of the House; but he thought that that difficulty had been much overrated; for he had no doubt that the estimates would be prepared with such care that they would leave no room for fault to be found with them. He hoped he had understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that the provincial expenditure would come into the accounts like the rest; only that the money would not be required to be sent to London and then sent back again? [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER intimated assent]. Now he was quite satisfied on that score. For the first time in the history of Parliament the House would have a control over the whole expenditure with the exception of the interest on the debt and some other charges, which amounted to about 2,500,000l. a year. He most cordially thanked the right hon. Gentleman for the important step he had taken, and trusted that he would proceed still further in the path of fiscal reform.

§ MR. HADFIELD
suggested that all pensions and sinecures in the Ecclesiastical Courts, the salaries in the Court of Queen's Bench, the expenses connected with the Regium Donum and the Ecclesiastical Commission should be brought under the revision of the House.

MR. HUME
said, it might be some satisfaction to the country to know that that House had resolved to put an end to all sinecure and useless offices connected with the army and every other department of the State excepting the Church. If the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hadfield) would look to the Report of the Select Committee upon sinecures, he would find that no 1266 pensions could be granted beyond the amount of 1,200l. a year voted to Her Majesty for that purpose.

§ Mr. KIRK
considered that the Regium Donum which had been alluded to was one of the most advantageous payments that could be made from the public funds.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER,
said the question of equalising the time of payments and receipts of the Exchequer, as suggested by the hon. Member for Kendal (Mr. Glyn) was a subject of the greatest importance, and was occupying his attention.