HC Deb 23 February 1880 vol 250 cc1262-73

(11.) £1,250, Treasury.

MR. RYLANDS

said, that on several occasions he had drawn attention to the fact that the Treasury had always required an additional Estimate on account of extra legal assistance. It would be found, on reference to the original Estimates, that £1,700 was voted for extra counsel to the Treasury. It did appear that a considerable amount of money was spent by the Treasury in giving employment to legal gentlemen beyond the amount authorized by Parliament. He thought that they had a reason to complain that the hon. Baronet invariably under-estimated this particular Department. Knowing the great anxiety of the hon. Baronet to keep down this particular expenditure when he made up his Estimates, still he thought that the amount of professional assistance which would be required should be originally estimated for.

MR. MONK

said, that the hon. Member for Burnley was perfectly right in objecting to this Vote. He had complained, year after year, that the Treasury had come for additional Votes for extra legal assistance. He believed that the fees paid by the Treasury for preparing Bills were extravagant. A large salary was paid to an hon. and learned Gentleman whose duty it was to prepare these Bills. No doubt, at times there was an extreme pressure on the Parliamentary counsel, and some extra assistance might be required. But it must be known to Her Majesty's Government, when preparing the Bills they proposed to bring forward, what amount of assistance would be required by the Parliamentary counsel. He thought that £1,700 voted last year, in addition to the salary paid, was a very large sum for preparing the Bills brought in by Her Majesty's Government. But now they were asked for an additional sum, and he felt inclined to move for a Return of the sums granted in respect of particular Bills prepared by counsel, the total amount of which was put down at £900. He thought it would be satisfactory to the Committee that they should know the reasons—which were, no doubt, good ones—why the hon. Baronet did not ask for this particular Vote in the Estimates last year.

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

said, that he was quite aware that the Secretary to the Treasury was very naturally blamed for under-estimating this particular Vote year after year. The reason that influenced the Treasury in so doing was a wish to keep down as far as possible the expenses. But when an Office brought in a particular measure it found it necessary to employ some draftsman possessing a special knowledge of the matter in question. That occurred more particularly with respect to legal measures; and he would draw the attention of the Committee to the Criminal Code Bill, which required very special preparation at the hands of the learned counsel since elevated to the Bench. The Bankruptcy Law Amendment Bill was also intrusted to persons skilled in that particular Department. There were other subjects on which they had also required special assistance—namely, Municipal Corporations and Rivera and the Railway Commission Bills. Those and other measures had rendered it necessary to pay in fees to counsel £900 in addition to the £1,700 estimated for last year. Moreover, at a certain period of the year, the Parliamentary counsel was very much overworked, and it was absolutely necessary to obtain outside assistance.

MR. RYLANDS

thought the explanation of the hon. Baronet was extremely unsatisfactory. The Criminal Code Bill, to which the hon. Baronet had referred, was a measure which had been before them in the previous year, and certainly did not cause this expenditure.

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

was aware that the Criminal Code Bill had now been prepared for some time; but he only alluded to it as an instance of a measure necessarily taken out of the Department.

MR. RYLANDS

remembered that the statements made last year represented that an enormous amount of professional labour had been expended on the Criminal Code Bill. Hon. Members admitted this; but they knew perfectly well that the labour having been completed and paid for, so far from justifying the present expenditure, justified him in asking the Secretary to the Treasury whether there were any other Bills in the hands of the Government which had not been laid on the Table of the House, and which required so large an amount of professional labour. The country paid for a staff of learned gentlemen to prepare Bills; but he was quite at a loss to see in the Bills which had been laid on the Table of the House any reason for the additional professional labour which seemed to have been employed by the Treasury. Reference had been made to the Municipal Corporations Bill and to the Railway Commission Bill which had been laid on the Table of the House; but those Bills were not of any magnitude, and in regard to the latter there was nothing in it that might not have been written in a few hours. The point he wished to impress upon the Treasury-was that the Committee had a right to say that, having a permanent staff of highly-paid legal officials connected with the Treasury for the purpose of preparing Bills, the Committee had received no sound reason which would justify them in voting so large a sum for the work which ought to have been done in the Department.

MR. MONK

thought that, with regard to the Municipal Corporations Bill, the Secretary to the Treasury had been a little chary in the information which he had given, and most wisely so, in regard to the evidence which had been taken before the Royal Commission, and which had not, up to that time, been presented to the House. But he (Mr. Monk) supposed that the truth of the matter was that the fees for legal services in question were in respect of certain Bills which, at the present moment, were reposing in the pigeon-holes of the Treasury. With regard to one of the Bills—the Railway Commission Bill—it had never been laid upon the Table of the House; indeed, it had never been introduced by the noble Lord the President of the Board of Trade. The noble Lord had informed the House on several occasions that he had the Bill ready to be brought in; but the Bill introduced last year, however, was only a continuance Bill. He maintained that if this £600, for which they were asked in the Supplementary Estimates, and the large sum for the Railway Commission Bill, were on account of Bills which had not been laid upon the Table of the House, they should have been brought before hon. Members in the Estimates for the present year, and not in the Supplementary Estimates.

MR. ASSHETON CROSS

desired to bear his testimony to the fact that a very great amount of time and labour had been spent, and enormous difficulties undergone, with regard to the Army Discipline and Regulation Bill. Neither the hon. Member who had just sat down, nor anyone who had seen the labour and time expended, could wonder at the necessity for the employment of extra assistance.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR

desired also to give his testimony with regard to the Army Discipline and Regulation Bill, which was, in his opinion, the worst that had ever been drafted. He asked the Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) whether he would supplement the statement that he had made, and let the Committee know what had been the cost of the several Bills, on account of which money for extra legal assistance had been paid, and whether he would also tell them what Bills had been prepared by the establishment of the Office, and for which no expense had accrued. Hon. Members would then see clearly the amount of work that had been performed by the costly staff kept up permanently. In many cases the Bills presented to the House of Commons were nothing better than waste paper, and were not satisfactory until they had been amended and passed by Members.

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

thought he should be more imprudent than he had already been, were he to promise the hon. Member any such Return as he proposed to move for. Of course, he could make at that moment no such statement to the House. There must be a certain amount of work done, and it had been found in some cases that the officers especially adapted to it had been overworked—so much so as to render it necessary to obtain outside assistance in the preparation of Bills.

MR. RYLANDS

was unable to consider that the explanation given by the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury was satisfactory.

Voteagreed to.

(12.) £2,400, Foreign Office.

MR. H. SAMUELSON

drew the attention of the Committee to the fact that in Class 2, Vote 5, there was an additional sum charged for telegrams, and that in the last line there was another additional sum which, with the amount he had already referred to, made an increase of £4,500 upon the amount of last year. There would have been, when they had voted this money, £17,200 upon telegrams alone. These two sums being of the same character, he would like to know why a sum for Foreign Office telegrams was charged in two different Votes?

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

said, that the reason for this distinction was that one of the items of expenditure was incurred in respect of telegrams sent by the Foreign Office, and that the next item under Clause 5 was for telegrams in connection with the different Commissions abroad. The latter charge was, therefore, accounted for under the Diplomatic Vote.

Voteagreed to.

(13.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £2,921, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1880, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Charity Commission for England and Wales.

MR. W. H. JAMES

desired to point out why, in his opinion, this Vote should not appear on the Estimates. He thought that the whole of the Charities of the country were subject to a considerable amount of unnecessary management, and that while, perhaps, they had done a certain amount of good, they had also been the cause of a certain amount of mischief. There was a strong opinion that the expenses of the Commission should not be borne by the Consolidated Fund, but by the Charities themselves. The House had on two occasions passed a Resolution last year on the subject. With regard to the Resolution introduced by himself, he had accepted an Amendment to refer the matter to a Select Committee, to which, however, the Chancellor of the Exchequer objected, on the ground that the Government were determined to do something before another year elapsed. Upon that, the Charities' Accounts and Expenses Bill was introduced and passed a Second Reading. When the Bill went into Committee, however, it was opposed by the hon. Member for Worcester, who had given Notice of opposition; after that a powerful deputation had attended upon the right hon. Gentleman, composed of deans, archdeacons, and mayors, who represented that disastrous results would ensue if the Bill were passed. Up to that time no opposition had appeared on the Notice Paper, with the exception of that of the hon. Member for Worcester; but afterwards, Notice of opposition was given by a number of Gentlemen more or less connected with the City of London—that was to say, by the hon. Member for the City, the hon. Member for Lambeth, the learned Recorder, and by the hon. Members for Essex, the Tower Hamlets, and Leeds. The Government, in consequence, withdrew the measure; but he (Mr. W. H. James) understood the Chancellor of the Exchequer at that time to say that the question would be re-introduced early at the commencement of the present Session. He had asked a Question upon this subject a few days previously, and received a reply to the effect that the Government intended to do nothing in the matter. Thus the Government were placing the House in an anomalous position by ignoring the Resolution passed by the House on the understanding that the Government should re-introduce the Bill, and by yielding to the pressure brought to bear upon them by a body of, no doubt, influential and powerful individuals in opposition both to the expressed opinions of the House of Commons and to the general merits of the question. It would not at that moment be desirable to enter again into these merits. He had given Notice of his intention to move a general reduction of the Votes; and unless the Secretary to the Treasury, or some other Gentleman on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, could give a clear explanation of what had taken place, he would consider it his duty to vote against this charge. He begged to move the rejection of this Vote.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £1,921, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1880, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Charity Commission for England and Wales."—(Mr. James.)

MR. DILLWYN

hoped that the Committee would be furnished with some explanation of this Vote. He did not see that any reason had been shown for the increase of this charge, nor for the increase which appeared upon almost every item in the Estimate. The original Estimate for two Commissions was £1,800, and now an additional sum of £600 was required.

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

said, that the explanation was as easy as he hoped it would be satisfactory to the Committee. Only three-fourths of the amount on account of the Endowed Schools had been taken in last year's Estimates. Early in last Session a Bill was passed to provide for the Endowed Schools—the Act relating to which had expired in the middle of last year—continuing for three years longer, and it then became necessary to take an additional quarter's expenses which had been left out of the former Estimate. If his hon. Friend the Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) would look into the matter, he would see that this was the proportion which had been taken for the various salaries, and entirely accounted for the amount now asked for, which represented one-fourth of the expense of the Commission for the whole year. That was the reason for the apparent increase, and he ventured to think his hon. Friend would see that the reduction which it was proposed to move would apply to this particular branch, and not to the general Commission. He trusted that his hon. Friend would not press the matter to a division. At the same time, he could not but say that no one regretted more than he that another Secretary to the Treasury should have made an endeavour, and again have failed to carry out what he individually believed ought to be done. He had on more than one occasion expressed his opinion that this Commission should be self-supporting, and he had last year stated that he would endeavour to propose something as a solution of the question. The Bill introduced, however, had passed through only a certain portion of its career in that House, when it was met by an opposition which made it impossible to proceed, and the measure was in consequence withdrawn. This was a question which he begged to assure the hon. Member for Gateshead (Mr. W. H. James) he had very much at heart; but he feared it was most unlikely that any effort on the part of the Government would be sufficient to overcome the opposition which had been brought to bear on the measure last year. The object of the Bill, however, was one which he would have liked to see carried out quite as much as his hon. Friend opposite.

MR. RYLANDS

hoped that after the explanation of the Secretary to the Treasury the Motion would not be pressed. He felt he could not vote with the hon. Member under the present circumstances of the case, however much he and his hon. Friends might be desirous of supporting the general view which had been expressed. It would be desirable, therefore, in his opinion, that the Vote should be passed. At the same time, while giving his assistance to the Government in passing this Vote, he desired to ask how far the Treasury intended to proceed with the Estimates then before the Committee. It was then 20 minutes past 1 o'clock; and although he had no desire that Progress should be reported too soon, they had arrived at a time when it was proper that the point should be considered. If his hon. Friend would allow the Vote then under consideration to pass, perhaps the Government would state what was their intention in that respect.

MR. W. H. JAMES

desired to point out that the Secretary to the Treasury had not answered his question. The Government had last year refused a Committee of Inquiry because they intended to deal with the subject themselves; but his own idea was that one reason why they were not anxious to proceed in this matter was that the funds of these Charities were often found to be of use on the eve of a General Election.

Motion, by leave,withdrawn.

Original Question put, andagreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Monk.)

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

hoped that the Committee would proceed. He would like to get through those Votes which did not contain any contentious matter. There were a great many Votes in the Supplementary Estimates to be got through; and although a certain amount of progress had been made a few Votes only had been passed. He hoped the Committee would proceed until they came to a Vote that would raise discussion, when he would at once consent to report Progress.

MR. O'DONNELL

thought that if the Government insisted upon proceeding any further they would spoil the admirable temper which had been shown by the Committee up to that time. So far as discussion was concerned, a very interesting discussion could and ought to be raised upon the Vote for Stationery and Printing. It was certainly time to report Progress, and he trusted the Government would agree to the Motion out of regard to the good disposition which had been shown by the Committee during the evening.

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

said, that after what had fallen from the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) with respect to the Stationery and Printing Vote, he would agree that Progress should be reported as soon as that Vote was reached.

Motion, by leave,withdrawn.

(14.) £1,085, Civil Service Commission.

MR. DILLWYN

desired to know what had been the increase of business which had raised the charge under this head? He would have supposed it was very well known what the amount of business was likely to be when the original Estimate was framed.

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

said, that the increase under this head had been caused by the examination of Military and Civil Service candidates whose numbers had increased; and he pointed out to the Committee that whereas the fees for the year had been estimated at £7,480 the actual payments had amounted to £12,500. The Committee would see from these figures what an increased amount of work had fallen upon the Examiners, and necessitated the increase of the charge under consideration.

Voteagreed to.

(15.) £16,763, Local Government Board.

MR. RAMSAY

thought the Committee should be informed as to whether there was any intention to augment the grant for medical officers in the Northern part of the Kingdom. This subject had been discussed last year, and there was an indication given then that something might be done for increasing the allowance in respect of medical officers in Scotland. Up to that time, however, nothing had been done. He would like, before they came to discuss the question in the Estimates for the coming year, to have some information as to this sum. In Scotland they had nothing corresponding to it, and he would like to know if anything was to be granted to Scotland before the Poor Law Act was passed? If the Poor Law Act was not required, and if the people of Scotland were to get any grant at all, they ought, in his opinion, to get it soon. It had also been suggested that there should be an allowance made for the education of pauper children, and they had a large sum voted annually for providing teachers in the Poor Law schools. He did not approve of these schools at all; but he would not then enter into that question. He thought, however, that when such large sums as that now asked for were voted for schools in England no reason existed why Her Majesty's Government should not give the two countries, England and Scotland, an amount corresponding to their respective populations, because they could secure an equitable distribution of the grant in Scotland and carry out any rules the Treasury might lay down. He suggested that no legislation with regard to the Poor Law should be proceeded with during the present Session.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR

observed, that all the efforts of the Scotch Members to induce the Government to make this grant for medical officers had hitherto been unsuccessful, for they did not band themselves together as the Irish Members did. He hoped that either the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary or the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury would give the Committee some information as to the intentions of the Government. A bad Poor Law was proposed to be introduced into Scotland, and then the Scotch Members were told that they could not have the money they required for medical officers unless they had legislation which they did not want.

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON

could quite understand that many people preferred to have money from the Treasury without any conditions. It was stated last year, on behalf of the Government, that unless the Bill proposed by the Government was passed the money would not be granted. The measure introduced did not meet with the favourable consideration of Scotch Members, and in the result it was withdrawn. When the Bill was passed the Treasury would be prepared to place Scotland financially in the same position as regarded the grant as the Sister Country.

MR. RAMSAY

said, that they had no desire to avoid the conditions with regard to the grant which were required. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had explained to them that if they desired the grant they must conform to the conditions under which the money was paid in England. But they did conform to those conditions already. Would the right hon. Gentleman explain what the conditions were to which they had not conformed? It was true they did not conform to the conditions affecting other matters. He thought they were quite right in asking for the additional grant for Scotland without being compelled to accept the Bill. The Bill was not required for the purpose of giving them the grant. There was no article upon the Statute Book which authorized this particular grant as regarded medical officers in England. The Government refused to give them the grant unless they accepted conditions affecting the administration of the Poor Law in Scotland which they objected to. He was afraid his hon. and gallant Friend was quite right it saying that unless they banded themselves together in the way their Irish Friends did their claims would meet with no consideration. He was sorry, because the system of banding themselves together had been brought into disrespute—so much so, that he did not think it would be wise to follow the successful example set them at the present time. Scotchmen usually did act together quite as harmoniously as Irishmen, and he did not think they needed any further organization. He hoped that the hon. Baronet would bring their rights to the notice of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and would explain that the legislation proposed was not required, and that they were willing to accept the grant on the same conditions on which it was agreed to.

Voteagreed to.

(16.) £600, National Debt Office.

Houseresumed.

Resolutions to be reportedTo-morrow;

Committee to sit again uponWednesday.