§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a supplementary sum, not exceeding £500, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for expenditure in respect of Osborne,
§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYI rise to see if I can extract some information with regard to this matter of Osborne Palace. As my right hon. Friend will remember, Osborne Palace was made over by King Edward for the training of naval cadets.
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThe only Question before the Committee is this supplementary sum of £500—£250 additional war bonus and £250 increased cost of labour and materials. Those are the only matters that can be discussed on this Vote.
§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYI am very much obliged to you, and I will very carefully observe your ruling. I wish to inquire why this money is needed seeing that Osborne now is not being used for naval cadets. May we have some short and brief explanation why this sum is required and also whether additional sums will be needed next year?
§ Sir A. MONDOsborne Palace has nothing at all to do with the Navy. Osborne Palace, since King Edward gave it over, has been used as a hospital for naval officers, and this money is for additional war bonus for the staff and to cover the increased cost of labour and material required for the upkeep of the hospital.
§ Mr. HOGGEWill my right hon. Friend tell us when this war bonus was given and to whom? The revised estimate is £6,285 and £250 is wanted for war bonus. That is a payment for salaries, wages and allowances, and the additional sum required is very small compared with the total amount.
§ Sir A. MONDI am very sorry that I cannot give the explanation that is asked. There used to be a very good practice in this House that hon. Members who wanted to raise questions on estimates generally gave notice of some of the points which they wanted to raise. Here is an amount of £250 war bonds paid to nurses, gardeners and other people at Osborne. I have not got the list in the House. How can my hon. Friend ask me without notice-to give such detailed information? I would be very glad to give the hon. Member any information he desires when, it is obtained.
§ Mr. HOGGEIt is simply because Ministers who are in charge of estimates in this House do not know the estimates; that these questions are asked. My right hon. Friend is President of the Board of Works and responsible for this expenditure, and he ought to know. He hag also-at his left hand a bevy of officials who can get the information at any moment. It is a pure farce for a Minister to say that he ought not to be expected to know that which he is paid for knowing.
§ Mr. E. WOODI agree with the hon. Member (Mr. Hogge). The right hon. Gentleman has referred to what he said was the ancient custom of Ministers receiving notice of matters that were going to be raised. But another ancient custom was that Ministers knew the estimates and those responsible for the estimates were themselves here. If these items are really connected with the Admiralty a representative of the Admiralty ought to be here. I would suggest that it would go a long way to meet the feeling which exists in all quarters of the House 301 with regard to the care given to estimates if the right hon. Gentleman would consent to withdraw this estimate from consideration now in order that on some subsequent occasion he may be able to give the House the information which it wants.
§ Sir A. MONDThis is a most unreasonable request. I am dealing with millions of pounds of estimates, and I take more trouble about them than some people, and because I cannot say at a moment's notice how a war bonus of £250 is spread among a staff of 90 or 100, this estimate is to be postponed. A more absurd charge was never made against a Minister. The hon. Member says that a representative of the Admiralty, who have nothing to do with this question, ought to be here.
§ Sir A. MONDI have. I have not got the particulars at this moment. The pay sheets are at Osborne with the allocation of the war bonus. If hon. Members are going to ask for this kind of information it is only reasonable to ask for notice. To ask a Minister, employing thousands of people, at a moment's notice to say what is the allocation of the war bonus of every individual person is a farce. The hon. Member knows that a question of this character is a very small matter of detail, and that this is an automatic charge over which the Minister has no control. It is perfectly unjust to make the charge that I do not give any regard to the expenditure of public funds. I shall be very glad to supply my hon. Friend with all particulars.
§ Mr. HOGGENobody accuses my right hon. Friend of not acquainting himself as far as possible with all the facts of an estimate, but I cannot accept his explanation. It means that any Minister who is in charge of an estimate can say, "I am very sorry I have not got these details, but we want our estimate and we appeal to the Committee" [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"], and the Committee say "Hear, hear!" and the estimate goes through, and we lose control of the money. One of the criticisms urged against us at this moment is that we do not pay attention to details. It is said that this is only £250. I do not know what the right hon. Gentleman thinks, but I should be very glad to have £250 given to me any day of the week in these 302 hard times. Two hundred and fifty pounds spread over the estimates here means a lot of money. I would like my right hon. Friend and Ministers to understand that some of us are not going to allow these estimates to go through without explanation. We want to know exactly what we are doing, and where we can save money. We are going to save money, and we are going to assume that a Minister in charge of the Department ought to know.
§ Sir A. MONDDocs the hon. Member wish the war bonus not to be paid to the staff?
§ Mr. HOGGEI did not go into the question whether the war bonus should or should not be paid. I asked simply the question what war bonus this was, and to whom it was paid. The right hon. Gentleman says that it is automatic. That is obviously absurd.
Captain STANLEY WILSONThe right hon. Gentleman has probably made one of the most unreasonable requests that have ever been made in this House. He asked that Members should give notice of any question which they are going to raise in this House. Such a request has never been made before and it is most unreasonable to make it at this time. I hope that my hon. and gallant Friend will not press that the Vote should be withdrawn, but I do ask the right hon. Gentleman to remember that he is not now discussing Estimates in the same way as that in which we discussed them last Session upstairs in Committee, where he was able to shove through his Estimates, just as he liked. We are here now as Members of the House of Commons to ask for every detail that we like to ask for. He is there and ought to be prepared to answer. I hope that he will not again make any suggestion that he should receive notice of any question that is going to be raised.
§ Sir A. MONDI did not make a suggestion. I referred to what was the invariable practice in this House in the old days. This war bonus was given under the award of November. When I said it was automatic I meant that we had to pay the war bonus when these awards were made. Therefore it was not in my power to refuse it, and I could not alter the amount or save money in that way. 303 I quite agree as to the importance of the examination of Estimates, but I have been through all my Estimates very carefully more than once to find out all the information which hon. Members would require. The matter which the hon. Member has raised is a very small matter, and I had no opportunity of inquiring into it. It would facilitate me, particularly on small questions of this kind, to get notice. On big questions the information would be more readily available, but it would save the time of the Committee and the Minister to give the Minister intimation when questions of this kind are going to be raised.
§ Colonel ASHLEYI think that my hon. Friends are hard on the Minister of Works. It is quite reasonable that a Minister who has one Department should know all about that Department, but the First Commissioner of Works has a great number of buildings to look after. He cannot possibly carry in his head all the details of these various Government buildings, of which he is the custodian. Having said that as regards this particular case, I would enter a protest against the form in which these Estimates are presented to the House of Commons.
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThe only question before us is whether these war bonuses should be paid. The discussion has been rather fully developed, and the hon. Gentleman must confine himself to the question of the payment of this £250.
§ Colonel ASHLEYThen I will confine myself to that. The information given here is not sufficient to enable the House of Commons to discuss the question adequately, and we ought to have particulars set out so that everybody can study them before the Estimates come on, and know exactly what they are asked to spend, and not have to get out of the Minister in charge by a too drawn process exactly what this means. Therefore, if my hon. Friends go to a Division, I shall vote with them, not because I am dissatisfied with the explanation of the First Commissioner, but because I am dissatisfied with the form in which the Estimates are presented.
Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAYThe right hon. Gentleman said that he had gone carefully through the Estimates in order to cover all the points raised in Debate. 304 That means that he expected points to be raised in this Debate other than those of which he had been given notice. How, therefore, can he say that it is not the practice of this House for Members to come down and raise points in discussion of which they have not given notice? All of us who have been in this House some time know perfectly well that it is the practice for Members in these discussions to go through the Estimates, and if there is any point which they wish to raise in the discussion to ask the Minister in chaise to answer any questions which are put.
§ Question put, and agreed to.