INSTRUCTION TO THE COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 20 February 1879)

§ MR. MONK,

in rising to move— That it be an Instruction to the Committee of Public Accounts, That they have power to consider whether any alteration in the Law is desirable, providing that a statement in each case in which the Naval and Military Departments have obtained the sanction of the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury to any expenditure not provided for in the sums appropriated to such services in the Votes contained in the Appropriation Act, setting forth the representation made to them by the respective Department, shall be laid upon the Table of the House within a limited period after such sanction shall have been given, merely wished to remark that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated, when he (Mr. Monk) brought forward the matter at the end of last Session, his intention that the subject should be taken up by the Committee of Public Accounts, and only urged in excuse of the oversight which had occurred that by some accident it had not been brought before that Committee. His hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury had also said he would take care that it should be in future referred to the Committee.

§ LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH

replied, that it was the duty of the Committee of Public Accounts to examine the Appropriation Accounts, and to report to the House on all points which arose in connection with them. Those were important duties, and the Committee, 1596 which had now sat during many years, had pointed out evils, from time to time, whenever they were shown by the Accounts before them to have occurred; but it had not stated the manner in which those evils were to be prevented. The responsibility of supplying the remedy should rest upon the Executive. The Committee had not the practical knowledge to enable it to make important recommendations with respect to the mode in which the Estimates were to be framed. Suppose that the Committee, acting on their instructions, recommended a change of importance to be made in the Navy and Army Estimates. In the course of a year or two it might be found that this recommendation would have to be given up. Would not the authority of the Committee be much diminished by having made a recommendation afterwards found to be impracticable?