SUPPLY — CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES. (Hansard, 20 May 1864)

§ MR. AUGUSTUS SMITH
said, in the present thin state of the House, he doubted whether it was proper to proceed with the discussion of the Estimates, that the Estimate for this work had been increased since last year from £200,000 to £228,000, and there was an extra item of £4,899 now brought forward for the first time for abortive designs. He supposed that those designs had been prepared on the sole authority of the Board of Works.

MR. COWPER
said, that last year, when the Estimate for the new Foreign Office was brought forward, he stated to the House that the Bum of £200,000 was the total amount which Mr. Scott, the architect, reckoned the erection of the building would cost. Since then, however, tenders had been received, the lowest of which amounted to £223,516. He stated at the time that the sum he named was the best estimate which Mr. Scott could furnish, but that the only real test would be the tenders. He did not now think that they had any reason to find fault with Mr. Scott's estimate, which he believed would have turned out correct if the work had been executed at the time it was made, But since then the price of labour and materials had risen in the market, and that fact accounted for the tender being higher than the estimate. The item of £4,899 charged for "preliminary expenses of designs for a Foreign Office which were not adopted "was not submitted to Parliament before because Mr. Seott abstained from sending in his claim until a final decision had been come to with regard to the Foreign Office. In that item was included the charge for the designs prepared by the direction of his predecessor the noble Lord opposite (Lord John Manners) in the Gothic style, which style the House, after full consideration, deliberately determined to reject. That rejection, however, did not deprive Mr. Scott of his right to fair remuneration for his labour, because his designs enabled the House to judge of what would have been the character of the building in case they had adopted the Gothic style.

§ MR.W. WILLIAMS
asked when it was likely the new Foreign Office would be 554 finished, and the enormous coat of hiring temporary accommodation put an end to?

§ MR. AUGUSTUS SMITH
wished to know whether he was to understand that £5,000, in round numbers, had been expended without any previous sanction from that House, in preparing designs that were not adopted. That mode of bringing forward items of charge incurred four or five years ago was highly objectionable. There was very little check or control exercised by the Treasury over the expenditure of the offices immediately subject to it, and more particularly of the Board of Works. Indeed, as a check in these matters, the Treasury seemed of very little use. He thought that it would be extremely improper to proceed with the Estimates in so thin a House, and moved that the House be counted.

§ MR. SPEAKER
resumed the Chair.