HC Deb 10 April 1905 vol 144 cc1059-60

The current year's services charged on the Consolidated Fund amounted to £29,780,000. Supply services, for which Estimates have already been laid before Parliament, amount to £111,252,000, making altogether a total estimated expenditure on that account of £141,032,000. To arrive at the total expenditure of the year we have to add the money which will be collected and applied to local purposes, amounting to £9,756,000, and the amount required for expenditure on works charged to capital, which I provisionally estimate at £9,000,000. I shall be prepared at a later date to give the Committee full details as to the estimates of this expenditure, but I have not at the present time means at my disposal to do more than give them the total in round numbers. The total sum, therefore, for which the State has to provide in the current year is £159,788,000, of which £141,032,000 is chargeable against the revenue for the year. To meet this expenditure I estimate that the following revenue will be available on the present basis of taxation. Customs I put at £35,600,000—that is to say, £630,000 less than the estimate, and £130,000 less than the receipts of the past year. I have to allow for a further fall of rather over £400,000 in the produce of the sugar duty, but against this I can set certain gains on other items of revenue. Excise I put at £30,200,000, or £1,300,000 below the estimate of last year; that allows for a further fall of £550,000 in the receipts from this source of revenue. I now come to the death duties. In the closing portion of the year there was some improvement in their yield, and I think we may anticipate a further recovery in the present year. I therefore place my estimate at £13,000,000, which is the amount actually realised in the year 1903–4. Stamps did better than my estimate last year, and I think we may expect a further improvement in the current year. I place them, therefore, at £8,000,000. Land tax and House duty I put at £2,700,000; Property and Income-tax at £31,000,000. That is £250,000 less than the yield for the past year, because, although the arrears will be collected at a higher I figure, there will be fewer arrears to collect. That gives me a total tax I revenue of £120,500,000. From the Post Office I anticipate an increase of £400,000, making the receipts £16,500,000. From the Telegraphs I expect an increase of £220,000, or a total ravenue of £4,050,000. From Crown Lands I expect to get £470,000, and from Miscellaneous Revenue £1,450,000. I am reminded that I have not mentioned in my calculations of non-tax revenue the produce of the Suez Canal shares—a grave omission, and one which I should regret the more if it did not serve to emphasise the admirable results we have achieved by that historic investment. The Suez Canal shares will, I anticipate, yield a revenue of £1,034,000. The total non-tax revenue will be, therefore, £23,504,000, which, added to a tax revenue of £120,500,000 gives a total revenue of £144,004,000, against an estimated expenditure of £141,032,000, leaving us a surplus on the present basis of taxation of £2,972,000.