(VOTE ON ACCOUNT.) (Hansard, 18 March 1910)

§ Mr. GIBSON BOWLES
I think it very unfortunate that the Estimates have not been distributed. We are asked to vote this Vote on Account in respect of Estimates of which we yet know nothing. I have been obliged to get the Estimates of last year in order to obtain some notion of what it is we are going to vote. Let the House recognise that the proposing of this Vote on Account is really an acceptance of all the Estimates to which it refers, because it is a Vote on Account of many items, in over a hundred different Departments, and by passing the Vote on Account we do in effect give authority to all the Votes for these Departments. Under the circumstances we ought to have those Votes before us. I merely remark in passing that I think this a very unfortunate state of affairs. I hope that in future this House will not be asked to pass Votes on Account unless we have all these Estimates before us. I do not wish to debate the question at any length. I only wish to ask a question. It is with respect to an item on Vote 3 for the Treasury and Subordinate Departments. The Vote on Account for that is £22,500 out of a total Estimate of £106,000. We have not got that Estimate before us. I do not know whether the-Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Hobhouse) can explain why it is not here. If it were here I could go through it and perhaps make out the answer to the question which I want to ask. But in its absence I was driven back to last year's Estimate to see in respect of what it is we are asked to vote. On page 90 of the Vote of last year there appears under the heading of Treasury and Subordinate Departments the Committee of Imperial Defence. I have put down a question in respect of that for Monday, but perhaps the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hobhouse) can answer it now. The total Vote for that is for secretary, assistant secretary and confidential clerk, £2,750. What about the other members of the Imperial Defence Committee? Do they not figure on this Vote to any extent at all? Do they get no salaries? How are they appointed and who are they? The Committee play a very important part in the administration of the Empire and in the settle- 661 ment of strategy and perhaps even of the two-Power and the three-Power standard. If the right hon. Gentleman can give me an answer it will perhaps save me from further investigation in this matter, and save me from pressing the question put down for Monday. In two words, I want to know in respect of what it is we are voting this particular item, in respect of this particular matter of Imperial defence? What does the Vote amount to? Is any portion of it for the members of the Committee of Imperial Defence themselves, or is it solely and wholly in regard to the secretary, the assistant secretary, and the confidential clerk? I perhaps might have avoided asking this question had I had the Estimates before me; but it is in consequence of what I cannot help thinking a deplorable irregularity by reason of which we have not the Estimates before us in respect of this Vote of Credit that I ask this question now.

§ The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hobhouse)
My hon. Friend is in error in describing this as a Vote of Credit. It is not a Vote of Credit.

§ Mr. GIBSON BOWLES
I beg pardon —a Vote on Account.

§ Mr. HOBHOUSE
These Votes are discussed by the Rules of the House on one of the allotted days. I may remind my hon. Friend that a Vote of Credit is generally taken when there is International disturbance in the air which is likely to affect us with foreign Powers. I am happy to say that is not the case on the present occasion. My hon. Friend will allow me to correct his description of the Vote.

§ Mr. GIBSON BOWLES
Quite right.

§ Mr. HOBHOUSE
My hon. Friend asks me unexpectedly—I make no complaint—a question with regard to the personnel of the Committee of Imperial Defence. The House is well aware that the Committee of Imperial Defence is essentially a Committee which is presided over and controlled by the Prime Minister for the time being. The members of the Committee— if my recollection is accurate—are entitled to a secretary and the necessary typewriting staff.

§ Sir CHARLES W. DILKE
The staff has been described as permanent, but there is no permanent member of the Committee.

§ Mr. HOBHOUSE
As my right hon. Friend says, there is no permanent member 662 of the Committee save the secretary and his typewriting staff. The Committee is the Prime Minister's Committee, which meets from time to time as occasion arises or the subject under discussion requires. Two of the Committee are members of the Cabinet for the time being, and there are added certain high officers of the Army and Navy, whose advice and assistance are required on particular subjects. My hon. Friend may rest assured that apart from the salaries which as members of the Cabinet or high officers of the Army or Navy they receive for their services, the only permanent expense in connection with the Committee is that for the secretary and the typewriting and clerical staff, besides, of course, such necessary expenses, as for locomotion and inquiry, which such an important body as that must necessitate. Those are the charges which are to be found in this share of the amount appropriated for the service of the Committee, and I hope that explanation will reassure my hon. Friend.

§ Mr. GIBSON BOWLES
There are no salaries to the members of the Committee as such?

§ Mr. HOBHOUSE
No; certainly not. I say quite definitely that members of the Committee who are also members of the Government or high officers of the Army and Navy receive payment for their services as such, but they receive no payment as members of the Imperial Defence Committee. I hope that will satisfy my hon. Friend.

§ Mr. GIBSON BOWLES
Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why the Estimates are not before the Committee?

§ Mr. HOBHOUSE
The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Austen Chamberlain), to whom I can appeal in a matter of this sort, will remember that tooth parties have constantly circulated Votes on Account in this House without the Estimates. Only in the last Session of the last Parliament the Vote on Account for Education, which covered all the Estimates for the year, was circulated, at the request of the House, long before the Estimates were brought forward. Although I agree that it is convenient, wherever possible, that the Estimates should be forthcoming before the Vote on Account is taken, yet there is not anything unusual or unprecedented in taking the Vote on Account before the General Estimates for the year are available.