§ SIR HENRY FOWLER (Wolverhampton, E.)I beg to ask Mr. Chanellor of the Exchequer why, in the Return of the gross public income and expenditure for the year ending 31st March, 1905, the income from Excise is stated at £30,750,000, and from Estate Duties at £12,350,000, but in the financial statement presented to the House by the Chancellor of the Exchequer the income from Excise Duty is stated at £36,066,000 and the income from Estate Duties is stated at £16,669,000; and why, in the Return, the payments to Local Taxation Accounts are stated at only £1,156,867 when they really were £9,696,000.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINThe Public Income and Expenditure Account, to which the right hon. Gentleman refers in his Question as the Return, is prepared under the Sinking Fund Act, 1875. That Act requires that it shall be "an Account of the Public Income and Expenditure of the United Kingdom according to the actual receipt and issue of moneys on the Exchequer Account." It cannot therefore, include the receipts of revenue which under various Acts are paid direct by the Revenue Departments 329 to the Local Taxation Accounts, and do not pass through the Account of the Exchequer. The Financial Statement which is presented to the House in connection with the Budget is prepared for the convenience of Members, so as to show the aggregate revenue raised by the State, including the revenue paid to the Local Taxation Accounts as well as that paid to the Exchequer Account. The receipts under the two heads are distinguished, and the Exchequer figures as there shown agree with those which the right hon. Gentleman quotes from the Return. As regards the sum of £1,156,000 about which the right hon. Gentleman inquires, that sum only represents the amount paid in pursuance of statutes from the Consolidated Fund to the Local Taxation Accounts; and it necessarily does not include the sums paid direct to those Accounts out of the assigned revenues which are given at page 2 of the Statement (Parliamentary Paper 119) as amounting to £9,813,000, making the aggregate amount with which the Local Taxation Accounts are credited up to £10,970,000 (in round thousands).
§ SIR HENRY FOWLERMay I ask whether there is any distinction in the receipt of this money as between the revenue and the Exchequer. The death duty levied on an estate is paid in one lump sum to the revenue, and allocated afterwards. It becomes part of the gross public income.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI do not think the right hon. Gentleman has observed that the Return has to be prepared to show the actual receipt and issue of moneys on the Exchequer Account. This money never reaches the Exchequer Account; it is intercepted beforehand. Therefore, a statement which is to show only what is paid into or out of the Exchequer Account could not include that item. Accordingly, the Return is not a complete statement of the money raised by Imperial taxation, as I made clear in my Budget statement.
§ SIR HENRY FOWLERWould it not be more convenient if one form of Accounts were adopted. At present there is a great difference of opinion as to what 330 the taxation of the country is. Differences of ten millions constantly occur in the debates in this House. Has not the time arrived when, week by week, a proper, intelligible, accurate statement should be presented to the country?
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI think it would be a great convenience if all parties could agree on a single form in which the accounts should be presented, instead of having separate Returns moved for by individual Members who all desire the figures presented in a different form. At present I am under a statutory obligation, by the Act of 1875, to present the particular Return to which the right hon. Gentleman objects, and if that were adopted as the only form it would be open to the objection of being incomplete.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESIs the Chancellor of the Exchequer aware that the vicious process of interception, by which £20,000,000 is withdrawn from the account, was not introduced until after the Act of 1875. In consequence of the interception of that money, can he not consider the propriety of introducing some Bill to amend the present form of accounts?
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI have just carried one Bill through its Committee stage, and there is another Bill I have promised. The prospect of adding another amending Bill to these has no great attraction for me at this moment. The fact that the interception of revenue has taken place since 1875 does not dispense me from presenting this Parliamentary Return.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESasked whether the right hon. Gentleman would undertake to accept a recommendation of the Public Accounts Committee on the subject.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINClearly I cannot say beforehand what my attitude would be to proposals which have not yet been submitted. Any recommendation from the Committee as to the form in which public accounts are presented will have my most serious consideration. The hon. Gentleman the Member for 331 King's Lynn holds strong views as to the particular forms which should be used, but others consider them the most misleading that could be adopted.
§ SIR HENRY FOWLERMy request has reference to the accounts presented weekly and published in the newspapers, which are not presented under the Act and are in the entire discretion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Sir William Harcourt, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced his intention of making the alteration, and the officials of the Department must have known that he would have done so if he had not been ejected from office.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI was not aware of that, nor did I understand that that was the point of the right hon. Gentleman's later Question. I will consider the matter. As far as my experience goes, the weekly Returns of revenue and expenditure seem to give rise to more misunderstanding than possibly any other Returns. It not infrequently happens, from the anxiety of the Government to give full information to the public, that they give information which the public are unable to digest. I am not at all certain that any good purpose is served by making these Returns at all.