COLONEL HERBERT (Monmouthshire, S.)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, with reference to Treasury Minute 5283/06 of March 28th, 1906, he can furnish the House with a statement of the Votes for Army Services, 1905–6, from which the estimated excess of £783,000 is expected to accrue 728 whether any steps are being taken by the Treasury to ensure that the Estimates of the spending departments for the year 1906–7 shall be framed with a more accurate regard to the actual requirements of the several services; and whether the Treasury proposes to apply any check to the practice whereby expenditure un-authorised by Parliament can be covered by the appropriation of balances arising from inaccurate Estimates.
§ MR. McKENNAThe principal savings were effected on the following Votes: Quarterings, Transport, and Remounts £107,000; Supplies and Clothing £338,000; Ordnance establishments and general stoics £78,000, and Works £87,000. The Estimates for 1906–7 were presented to the House in March, and it is therefore not possible in the current year to take any special stops in the direction indicated. No expenditure which involves an excess upon a Vote or even, generally speaking, upon a sub-head of a Vote can be incurred without the sanction of the Treasury, and I would point out that the Treasury Minute of March 28th last sanctions excesses of expenditure to the extent of £92,000 being met out of savings estimated to amount to £783,000. I desire also to say that, as was shown incidentally in connection with the Navy Supplementary Estimate of this session, the Treasury aims at greater stringency for the future in the exorcise of the temporary powers of transfer between Vote and Vote which are annually conferred by the Appropriation Act in respect of Navy and Army Services.