HC Deb 11 March 1878 vol 238 cc1048-57
MR. HERMON,

in rising to call attention to the number and expense of the Returns laid upon the Table, and consequent derangement of Departmental work; and to move the following Reso-lution:— That Members asking for Returns should previously ascertain from the Department the approximate expense and time required for their production, and give this information to the House when moving for the same; said, the cost of those Returns was not the most serious part of the question, but the preparation of them led to a serious disorganization of Departmental work. In 1875 the cost of certain Returns, in clerical labour and printing, was £13,800, and the sales of them produced £133. Certain other Returns ordered in 1875 and printed in 1876 cost £2,952 and produced £6 8s. 5d. The production of these Returns involved a great interference with Departmental work; and, in some instances, owing to the length of time required for their preparation, they were useless when published, and changed circumstances had rendered them nugatory. Some of these Returns occupied two or three years sometimes in production, and in one instance even four years was taken. Of course, he might be told that it was in the power of Ministers to refuse Returns when asked for; but it was an invidious task to refuse them, particularly when it was open to anyone to suggest that the non-production of Returns might facilitate legislation of an improper character. It was notorious that many of the Returns delivered to hon. Members were regarded as so much waste paper, and got rid of as such; and if they were to be sold as waste paper, they ought to be sold on account of the House, and the proceeds applied in reduction of the cost of producing them. Circulars were sent round by stationers offering 14s. per cwt. for small, and 16s. to 18s. per cwt. for large. In an essay published some years ago on the subject of waste, after enumerating various sources of waste in household matters, the writer said—"Now let us descend to the kitchen." So it might be said with regard to public expenditure—"Let us descend to the printing department." He hoped his hon. and gallant Friend the Secretary to the Treasury would give them a little of his experience, which would show where the shoe pinched. The amount realized by the Returns as waste paper showed what a drug they were in the market. In conclusion, he begged to move his Resolution.

ADMIRAL SIR WILLIAM EDMONSTONE

seconded the Resolution.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "Members asking for Returns should previously ascertain from the Department the approximate expense and time required for their production, and give this information to the House when moving for the same,"—(Mr. Sermon,) —instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

MR. BAXTER

said, that anyone who had held the office of Secretary to the Treasury would thoroughly sympathize with the remarks of the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Hermon), and acknowledge that he had done good service by bringing the subject before the House. It was of far more importance than many might suppose. The question was, as the hon. Gentleman had said, not so much one of money as of time, and he could assure the House that the time occupied in preparing and printing the vast number of Returns which were constantly being asked for was very great indeed. He was quite sure that some change ought to be effected. He had known Returns presented which he did not believe were read by a single person in the House or out of it—probably not even by the hon. Member who had moved for them. Many Returns were far too voluminous for the information that was really required. There was, however, one aspect of the question to which the hon. Gentleman had not referred. Some of the Departments of the Government were overmanned; and, whenever a proposal had been made for reducing these establishments, it had been said—"We must keep up a certain number of clerks in order that Returns called for by the House of Commons may be produced with despatch." He did not think his hon. Friend would find the Civil Service very enthusiastic in support of his Motion. He would suggest that a Committee should be appointed to examine these applications, and that no applications should be granted without the consent of that Committee. It was a very invidious task to refuse Returns moved for by hon. Gentlemen, who stated that they were necessary for the public service.

MR. GOLDSMID

said, that some Ministers, and notably the Secretary of State for War, had set a good example by declining to produce Returns, either when the information was already accessible or could be furnished privately and was not worth the expense of publication. It might be said that such refusal sometimes averted difficulty and discussion, and therefore it was an invidious task for Ministers to exercise their discretion and assume the responsibility of refusing to produce Returns that were not of general interest; but nevertheless he thought they ought to run that risk. In his opinion, every application for Returns ought to have the signature of more than one hon. Member, and all hon. Members applying for the Return ought to be interested in obtaining the information sought. He would even go further, and say that no Return ought to be printed unless the application had received the approval of a Standing Committee appointed for the purpose of examining the applications. There were many Returns which were mere waste of paper. A year or two ago one hon. Member had cost the country £1,000 in the matter of Returns. He did not say that that hon. Member would not have been useful to the country at that salary; but he thought no hon. Member, however valuable, ought indirectly to cost the country that sum.

EARL PERCY

said, this appeared to be a very important subject in the eyes of many hon. Members. It had been frequently discussed in the House, but no decision had ever been come to. He did not think the Resolution of the hon. Member for Preston was one to which the House would probably consent. Indeed, he saw certain grave objections to the proposal of the hon. Member, and doubted whether the appointment of a Committee of the House expressly to deal with this matter would be advisable. He would suggest that the matter might be referred to a Committee of the House already sitting— namely, the Committee sitting on the question of Public Business.

MR. NEWDEGATE

said, the subject was one of considerable difficulty. He would recommend the adoption of the course pursued in the United States, where the information usually embodied in Returns was published every Session in an abstract form, being supplied voluntarily by the Government to Members in that form at the commencement of every Session, so that they were thus put in possession of much valuable information bearing on the legislation of the year.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR

said, he had no objection to useless Returns being diminished. There was no greater advocate for economy than himself. There existed many openings for effecting economies in the ill-digested and often imperfect and sometimes unnecessary printing. He, however, contended that a Member of Parliament was justified in asking for such information as he considered necessary in the fulfilment of his duty; but hon. Members ought not to have thrown upon them the onus of asking for such information; it should be furnished by the Government, and Members ought to be supplied with an official abstract of the information now scattered over many Returns; and every Department ought to be required to compile and lay before Parliament annual Returns of all matters relating to their offices. The Statistical Abstract, or Military Blue Book introduced into the War Office by the present Secretary to the Treasury, while he was Financial Secretary to the War Department, had been in this direction; and, although very imperfect and very meagre, yet that Abstract had already reduced the number of Returns asked for from that Department. He would now earnestly urge the hon. and gallant Gentleman to introduce some similar compilation of financial Returns into the office which he now held. There were already some financial Returns entered in the Statistical Abstract; but there were many other Returns of a most valuable character moved for in former years which ought to be kept up, and brought down to the present day. Amongst those documents there were some Returns moved for by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, when out of office, which ought to be rescued from the oblivion which necessarily attended an undigested mass of Returns. There were also Returns of a most valuable character which his relative, the late Mr. Hume, obtained. At the present day, there was the Return moved for annually by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers) which ought to be furnished by the Treasury, without entailing on the right hon. Gentleman the onus of moving for it. Indeed, no one who had taken an interest in the records of former days could fail to deplore the neglect which was exhibited to the work of former years. It was to the unaided and often opposed exertions of Members that they owed the far greater regularity which now existed as compared with former periods, in their financial affairs. He himself had tried to obtain useful information. One Return, relating to harbours, was of great value. It showed an expenditure of public money to the extent of £10,000,000, laid out since the beginning of this century, and nearly all the outlay had been uselessly spent. With that knowledge on his mind, he thought that hon. Members ought to be aided in their efforts to expose defects and to obtain information. He protested against the proposal that he, as a Member of Parliament, was to go to the clerks—though he had a high respect for them—and demean himself by asking "What is to be the cost of this?" or "What will be the length of that?" That was a step which no Member of that House ought to be asked to take. He, at all events, should not take it. He would rather go without his Return altogether.

SIR GEORGE BOWYER

said, that this matter could not be dealt with by any specific Resolution or regulations; but must, to a great extent, be left to the discretion of hon. Members and the Government. It frequently happened that a Return was moved for, not because a hon. Member himself required it, but because some of his constituents wrote to him requesting that he would obtain it. This led to great expense. He thought the Government might reduce the Returns by pointing out, when an hon. Member asked for an expensive Return, what the Return would cost.

MR. CHILDERS

said, though they were anxious to go into Committee of Supply, the time spent on this matter was by no means thrown away; because, undoubtedly, the subject was not an unimportant one. No one could fail to see that the statistical Returns obtained on the Motions of hon. Members were often redundant and useless. A vast mass of undigested Returns was placed before the House which was calculated rather to confuse than to inform the minds of hon. Members, and given in a manner unworthy of this country and in a much less authentic form than was the case in the United States, in Franco, and even in many of our own Colonies. He happened to be at the present time Chairman of a Commission which was examining the whole question of public statistics, and which would probably produce a Report which would be found useful in dealing hereafter with Motions for detailed Returns, as reference might be made to it when it was important to know in what exact shape additional details should be given; but this would not be enough, and he ventured to throw out for the consideration of the Secretary to the Treasury, whether it would not be possible to appoint some small standing Committee to stand impartially between hon. Members moving for Returns and Her Majesty's Government, and advise whether they should be granted in whole or in part; for often the cream of a Return was contained in half-a-dozen lines, and all the rest need not be printed. It would, of course, be necessary to be very careful in the carrying out of any such plan; for the faintest suspicion that it was intended to prevent Members from obtaining the fullest information from the Departments would be fatal to the interposition of any chock.

COLONEL STANLEY

said, his hon. Friend the Member for Preston ought to be satisfied by the discussion which had been held that he had done good service in bringing the subject before the House. He would have seen, too, that there was a general agreement in the principle he had advocated and in the object he had in view; and though it would be his duty to object to the actual mode in which his hon. Friend proposed to remedy the present evil, still he must say personally, and on behalf of the Government, that his views were to a great extent in harmony with those of his hon. Friend. There could hardly be a doubt as to the inconvenience to, and disturbance of, the more immediately practical duties of the public Departments from their being from time to time required to prepare large and voluminous Returns. To speak generally, Returns consisted of four classes—those which furnished information which the House had an undoubted right to possess; information moved for to be used for the purpose of practical discussion; Returns of general interest, and, in addition, Returns—and they were growing in number, he regretted to say—for which hon. Members moved having no interest on the subject-matter themselves, but asked for because they were requested to obtain the information by some constituent. They had had various suggestions from different parts of the House as to the mode in which the evil spoken of might best be met. The expense incurred was not the most serious part of the evil, although it was considerable. If hon. Members would look at the Return of 1875, No. 473, they would find a most instructive column, which showed the number of copies sold, and it would be seen that the Returns which cost most realized least from sale to the public. These, he imagined, were the Returns which his hon. Friend desired to restrict, not only on account of their cost, but also on account of the disturbance they caused to the business of the public Departments. With respect to the suggestion that Notices of Motions for Returns should be referred to the Statistical Committee, it was certainly worthy of consideration whether that Committee or some modification of it might not perform the functions with respect to Returns which were fulfilled with respect to accounts by the Public Accounts Committee. Every hon. Member would be guided by due deference to the Speaker in approaching a matter which applied individually to himself; but it should not be forgotten that the right hon. Gentleman was materially assisted by the Printing Committee in the selection of documents to be printed. In many cases, the labour imposed on Departments by requiring them to make Returns was very great, and the clerks in the Civil Service had already quite as much work to do as they could conveniently get through. Indeed, when a voluminous Return was moved for and had to be presented within a given time additional mechanical assistance was often required. The hon. and gallant Member for Kincardineshire (General Sir George Balfour) had referred to an alteration supposed to have been made at his instance in the Returns laid before the House by the Secretary of State for War. He must disclaim undue credit in regard to that change, and must say that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was answerable for the form in which the Returns were laid before Parliament. No doubt considerable convenience had accrued from that alteration; for, when information had been laid before the public in a form that was clear and easy to understand, the Secretary of State or the head of a Department could point to the information thus given and decline to supply it again in a slightly varied form. While agreeing in the main with what had fallen from his hon. Friend the Member for Preston, and from those hon. Members who had supported him, he was bound to demur to the exact terms of the Resolution. He must therefore oppose it, although it might be possible for the Government to carry out its intentions in a different form.

MR. HIBBERT

said, he thought it desirable to separate the Returns into two classes—those which ought to be printed and those which it was not desirable to print. There were many Returns which, although very valuable, need not be distributed. Supposing a Committee were appointed to consider this point, they might throw out some valuable suggestions. Last year he moved for a Return; but, as its printing would have been very expensive, he thought it quite sufficient that it should be merely laid on the Table.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

remarked that Returns were not necessarily printed under the existing system. When a Return was made up in manuscript, the Librarian of the House communicated with the Member who had obtained it; and, in some instances, either the hon. Member himself, or the Printing Committee took action to prevent the country being put to the expense of printing. He trusted, however, that the Secretary to the Treasury would not suppose that hon. Members were unanimous on this subject of Returns. In an expenditure of £75,000,000 a-year the saving effected by the kind of supervision proposed would be perfectly immaterial. Returns were useful, not to Members only, but to persons outside the House, and might be circulated by hon. Members in quarters where they would be justly appreciated. Statistical Returns had always been distasteful to Governments, who naturally did not wish to present Returns relating to their own particular Departments. The sale, also, of Returns gave no criterion of their value, because many of them were digested and re-appeared in abstract in various useful publications. The Statesman's Year Booh, the Financial Almanac, and other publications of the same kind would be impossible unless the House of Commons provided information. He did not sympathize with this Motion. What the House ought to do was to endeavour to make Returns much more useful by allowing hon. Members to send them through the post without charge, as had been frequently advocated by the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren).

MR. M'LAREN

wished to make a suggestion which, he thought, would save the necessity for a great many of the Returns that were now made. There were two Reports made annually, one from the Customs and the other from the Inland Revenue. These Reports were very inexpensive, and he ventured to say that if these two Reports were not published as Blue Books, thousands of pounds would be expended on Returns. He would suggest that other Departments should do as the Customs and Inland Revenue did. The Board of Trade should issue one or more small Blue Books concerning their different departments, the Home Office should issue one or more, showing the sums expended and business done by their Department, and the War Office should act in the same way. In this way the necessity for many Returns would be got rid of.

Question put, and agreed to.

Main Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."