HC Deb 22 May 1905 vol 146 cc958-60
MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer on what conditions, and by virtue of what authority, the sanction of the Treasury was given to the expenditure by the Admiralty, in the financial year ending 31st March, 1905, of a sum of £4,000 on buildings at Whale Island, not authorised by the Navy Estimates of that year.

MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

The Board of Admiralty represented to the Treasury, in January last, the urgency in the public interest of providing accommodation at Whale Island for the instruction of naval lieutenants by the coming autumn, and the Treasury gave its assent accordingly. No excess on Navy Vote 10 for 1904–5 was entailed by the expenditure of £4,000 shown at page 135 of the current Navy Estimates, and consequently the authority of the Treasury was that governing the transfer of moneys between sub-head and subhead of the same Vote. As the hon. Member is aware, the Estimate of Navy Vote 10 for the current year, which includes this service, has been passed in Committee of Supply.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

What authority had the Treasury for allowing the Admiralty to spend money for a service not provided for in last year's Estimates? Do the Treasury assume the right to authorise any Department to apply public money for public services not sanctioned by the House?

MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

The Treasury has power, as the hon. Gentleman must know, to convey money voted under one sub-head for the Navy to another sub-head of the same Vote. That is the authority which we used.

MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON

What I am asking is what authority the Treasury has when the House has not sanctioned expenditure on a particular service to allow the Admiralty to spend money on it. Taking money from one sub-head and applying it to another is a totally different thing.

MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

The Treasury did it under the authority I have stated by transferring from one subhead to another. In this particular case there was no money provision under the sub-head to which the transfer was made. The hon. and learned Gentleman must be aware from his experience as a Civil Lord of the Admiralty that the Treasury does take the responsibility of sactioning expenditure in anticipation of Parliamentary approval.