HC Deb 18 February 1856 vol 140 cc972-3

On bringing up the Report of the Committee of Supply,

MR. W. WILLIAMS

said, he begged to call the attention of the Secretary of the Treasury to the omission from the Estimates of the superannuations and pensions in certain departments, amounting to £494,000. In a Bill passed two years ago, it was provided that those items should be included in the Estimates, so that the entire expense should be brought out together, but in the passage of the Bill through the Lords that provision was struck out. It was of importance that in future Estimates the superannuation and pensions should be included.

MR. WILSON

said, that it was certainly right that those items should be in- cluded in the Estimates. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gladstone) had, in the Bill introduced two years ago, provided for their appearance in the Estimates, but, as the hon. Gentleman had said, in the progress of the Bill through the House of Lords the provision to that effect was struck out, and consequently the accounts now presented were not accounts either of the net or gross proceeds, and were more incomplete than ever. He trusted that on an early occasion an enactment would be introduced enabling the Government to charge the whole of these superannuations in the annual Estimates.

Resolutions reported.