SUPPLY. (Hansard, 22 June 1917)

§ The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara)
I think it due to the Committee that I should shortly explain this Excess Vote asked for. We are dealing with appropriations of moneys placed at our disposal by the Estimates (Annual and Supplementary) of the year 1915–16. The House will remember that since the financial year 1914–15, when Parliament sanctioned the Navy Estimates in the usual way, the Navy Estimates for subsequent years had been prepared on Token Votes in accordance with the Treasury Minute of the 5th of February, 1915. For 1915–16, under this Token Vote system, the amount placed at our disposal was £1,000 Parliamentary Vote and £100 Appropriation-in-Aid under each of the seventeen Navy Votes— that is to say, £17,000 and £1,700, making a total of £18,700. By the Supplementary Estimate presented on 21st February, 1916, a further sum of £10 was voted, plus £4,500,000 estimated substantive Appropriations-in-Aid, and that was made available by that Token Vote. Therefore, down to the 21st February, 1916, the total spending power of the Admiralty for the year 1915–16, so far as Navy Votes was concerned, was £4,518,710. For the rest, we drew upon the Vote of Credit. The Appropriation Account of all our expenditure for the year has been submitted to the Controller and Auditor-General. We have not in the national interest submitted the usual full and detailed publication of the Appropriation Account, but we have submitted a summarised form, and we keep an account of a more detailed character, giving the whole of the detailed explanation, and it can be published as and when the public interest permits. This summarised account was ordered by the House to be printed on 1st March. Our officers have been examined upon it before the Public Accounts; Committee, and that Committee will report to the House upon it later this year.
2142 That Appropriation Account shows that in 1915–16 we actually expended a gross sum of £211,421,914 3s. 3d. If I deduct from that the sum to which I have already referred, and which is at our disposal by the original and Supplementary Estimates namely, £4,518,710, there remains an excess of £206,903,204 3s. 3d. which has to be met out of issues from the Vo£e of Credit and out of Appropriations-in-Aid. We have met it so far out of Votes of Credit to the extent of £205,716,588 17s. 7d., leaving an amount of £1,186,617 5s. 8d. to be met out of Appropriations-in-Aid. As a matter of fact, the realised Appropriations-in-Aid were £5,688,317 5s. 8d. We could have surrendered the additional £1,186,617 5s. 8d. to the Treasury, but that would simply have meant that the amount of the Vote of Credit applied to Navy purposes would have been pro tanto increased. We have retained it, and we have used it to balance a corresponding excess in expenditure, and we now come to Parliament in the usual way to obtain sanction for the regularisation of the application of an Appropriation-in-Aid beyond the amount allowed in the Estimates. Therefore, the excess of expenditure which the House is now asked to sanction in Committee will meet the matter in the following way: By the application of excess receipts to the extent of £1,186,607 5s. 8d., and by the grant of a sum of £10, giving the total of £1,186,617 5s. 8d. I have only one other thing to say. The total Appropriations-in-Aid for this year 1915–16 is much larger than any of those estimated for in pre-war times:, which ran in the region of £2,000,000, but it is due to the fact that we have received considerable repayments from foreign Governments for supplies of fuel and naval stores, which income did not arise in the days before the War.

§ Mr. WATT
I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for making this matter so clear.

§ Mr. ROCH
I should also like to thank the right hon. Gentleman for the clear statement which he has made. I think he has rendered good service, because he has shown to the critics that the House of Commons has not lost complete control over finance in the great spending Departments.

§ Mr. DENMAN
I trust that on future occasions the House will be put in possession of the Report of the Public 2143 Accounts Committee before such Estimates are presented to the House, so that if there be any occasion for criticism that criticism may be formed and give some knowledge. I should like to ask whether the figures include any sum that may have been paid by the Government under their insurance scheme for shipping? Does that sum appear on the Votes for the Admiralty or on those for the Board of Trade?

§ Dr. MACNAMARA
Of course, this will come up again when the Public Accounts Committee has reported to this House on the Navy Estimates.

§ Mr. DENMAN
But meanwhile the expenditure is sanctioned.

§ Dr. MACNAMARA
We get authority for having used Appropriations-in-Aid to the extent of £1,186,617 5s. 8d., but the whole account has been subject to the examination of the Public Accounts Committee, which will report later in the year on the gross expenditure of £211,421,914 3s. 3d., which will include this sum, only by this Vote it will come from Appropriations-in-Aid and not from 2144 the Vote of Credit. What we are doing to-day has to be done with the authority of the Public Accounts Committee and in accordance with precedent.

§ Mr. DENMAN
Does this include the sum payable under the insurance scheme for vessels lost?

§ Dr. MACNAMARA
I should like to look into that. If it were a maritime question, clearly it would be the Board of Trade, but whether it will be borne by the Navy Votes or not I should not like to say offhand.