§ Hon. Members have already before them in the Estimates the sums required for the Supply services, which make a total of £417,909,000, leaving out the Post Office expenditure, which is now dealt with as a self-balancing service. On the Fighting Services there is a reduction of £2,521,000 compared with the original estimate of last year, the new total being £110,089,000. The Navy Estimates show a decrease of £4,126,000, due mainly to the reductions which the present Government have felt justified in making in the shipbuilding programmes of 1928 and 1929. Those reductions have already been announced to the House. The Army Estimates show a decrease of £45,000 on the original estimates for last year, and one of £605,000 on the original Estimates plus the Supplementary. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War has been able to secure these reductions notwithstanding the loss of receipts in connection with the Army of Occupation of the Rhine, and the inclusion, as I think has already been explained, in the original Estimates this year, for the first time, of the extra cost of additional troops in China. The Air Estimates show an increase of £1,650,000 over the original Estimates of last year, but the Committee will remember that a Supplementary Estimate of £760,000 was necessary in that year.
§ The reduction in the expenditure on the Fighting Services compared with three years ago is more than £7,000,000, but it is not so much as I would like to see. I think we are all agreed that it is a deplorable thing that 12 years after the end of the War-to-end-war we and the other Powers of the world should 2666 be spending so large a part of our resources upon the maintenance of huge armaments and upon preparations for another possible war, especially when over 50 nations have solemnly renounced war as an instrument of national policy and have pledged themselves never to resort to war for the settling of international disputes. So much for the Fighting Services Estimates.
§ The total of the Civil Estimates is £295,686,000. This figure, I must ask the Committee to note, is not properly comparable with the total of the Civil Estimates for the previous year by reason of the coming into full operation this year of the financial provisions of the Local Government Acts. The Civil Estimates total includes approximately £15,000,000 in respect of grants to local authorities which were formerly made through the local taxation accounts, and the increase due to this item is set off by a corresponding reduction in the Consolidated Fund charges. The total of the Estimates also includes additional grants to local authorities under the de-rating scheme of approximately £15,000,000 over and above the amount provided from the Votes in 1929. Thus the effect of the Local Government Acts is to increase the Civil Estimates by £30,000,000, subject to a set-off of £15,000,000 on the Consolidated Fund charges. The figures relating to the de-rating scheme are extremely confusing. I must ask the Committee to note that this sum of £30,000,000 which I have mentioned is the increase in the cost to Civil Estimates in 1930 over 1929. In 1929, there was an expenditure of £15,560,000 on rating relief from the 1st October and the accelerated rebates on railway freights. This year the expenditure on Civil Estimates is £30,000,000 more, but against that increase is to be set a saving of £15,000,000 on Consolidated Fund Services. If I have not, and I am afraid I have not, made it perfectly clear, this will put the position in one short sentence: The real addition to the Exchequer this year is £15,000,000 on this account.
§ Excluding the effect of the de-rating scheme, the Civil Estimates total is £27,000,000 higher than the Budget Estimate of 1929, and £16,000,000 higher than the final Estimates of that year, including the Supplementary Estimates. Of the £27,000,000 increase, £14,000,000 arises from the additional grants we have had 2667 to make to deal with the insolvent position of the Unemployment Fund, and £5,000,000 is the additional contribution in respect of Widows', Orphans and Old Age Pensions. The other items which make up this increase are mainly these—they are rather interesting as showing the growth of the Social Services: The normal growth of old age pensions, £1,000,000; growth of education grants, £2,500,000; growth in housing and health insurance grants, £1,368,000; increase in Beet Sugar Subsidy, due to increased acreage planted, £2,400,000; grants under Development Acts passed by my right hon. Friend at the beginning of this Session, £1,185,000.
§ As regards the Consolidated Fund Services, the preponderating item is the Fixed Debt charge of £355,000,000. There are payments to the Northern Ireland Exchequer of £5,700,000 and miscellaneous Consolidated Fund charges at £3,300,000, including a remanet payment of £300,000 to the local taxation account. But for this last item the miscellaneous Consolidated Fund charges would have shown a reduction of £500,000 on last year. I do not know if expert Members of the Committee will be able to detect from this particular economy that I have not thought it necessary to provide this financial year for the expenses of a General Election. Excluding the self-balancing items, I thus put the total expenditure for 1930–31 at £781,909,000.