Plowden Committee (Report) (Hansard, 14 April 1960)

§ 7. Mr. Turton
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has yet received any report from the Plowden Committee; and in what form he proposes to communicate to the House reports and recommendations from this Committee.

§ The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Edward Boyle)
No, Sir. The Committee will make confidential recommendations to Her Majesty's Government; but, as has already been promised, the conclusions reached by the Government on them will be put before the House in due course. It is too soon to say how this will best be done.

§ Mr. Turton
Can my hon. Friend reconcile that reply with the statement made in this House on 16th March by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, when he suggested that the House should await the Report of this inquiry before the House took further the question of Treasury control? Will he take care that the existence of the Plowden Committee does not postpone or prevent the House discharging its proper function of discussing Treasury control?

§ Sir E. Boyle
I can assure my right hon. Friend we are well aware that this subject of control of expenditure is a matter of keen concern to right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House, but I just remind him that the reason for the confidential status of this Report is simply that the Committee is advising the Government, at least in part, on the way they should conduct their own internal finance. The Select Committee which recommended the further inquiry recognised its partly confidential nature, because it proposed that it should have access to Cabinet papers. I do not think there is any inconsistency between the object of the Committee and the concern felt about Treasury control on both sides of the House.

Mr. H. Wilson
But will the Financial Secretary—who, I think, is giving a lot of attention to this question—in order to help the fuller Parliamentary control of expenditure, particularly in relation to securing value for money, consider whether it would not be desirable that the House should set aside two or three days every year to debate the Reports of the Public Accounts Committee and the Estimates Committee, where those bear on specific items of continuing expenditure? Does he not feel that acceptance of a proposal like that would enable the House as a whole to play a real part while, at the same time, making the fullest use of the expertise, and very hard work, of the members of the two Committees?

§ Sir E. Boyle
That, of course, is a much wider question than that on the Order Paper, but I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who comes into these matters a very great deal, will take note of the right hon. Gentleman's point.

§ Mr. Speaker
Mr. Swingler.

§ Sir G. Nicholson
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As I was very closely connected with the production of the Report on Treasury control by the Estimates Committee, can I ask a supplementary question?

§ Mr. Speaker
I am afraid not. It is my fault. I am anxious about our progress, which at present is extremely poor.