§ Q4. Mr. Dribergasked the Prime Minister if he is aware that, as the end of each financial year approaches, public money is sometimes spent unnecessarily because Departments and Services fear that, unless they spend up to the limit authorised for the year, in succeeding years they will be subjected to Treasury pressure to reduce their estimates; and if, in order to avoid waste and facilitate long-term planning, he will request the Treasury and the spending Departments to consider how best to remedy this practice.
§ The Prime MinisterThe system for controlling public expenditure includes several features to counteract any tendency of the kind referred to by my hon. Friend. But my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is constantly seeking to improve the system and will examine any specific evidence that my hon. Friend cares to send him.
§ Mr. DribergSince this kind of thing is still taking place—and I will send my right hon. Friend one or two examples of it from the last few weeks—could he say why the Treasury, whose object, obviously, is to save money, takes so long to come round to a reform which would represent a net saving in many cases?
§ The Prime MinisterThe matter is not quite so easy as it appears, as anyone who has been a member of the Public Accounts Committee will confirm. It is essential to the House's control of expenditure that there be a clear date after which expenditure ceases. In recent years, there have been certain easements of this, mainly following the Report of the Plowden Committee on Government expenditure, and, as I say, we are prepared to consider any further improvements. But to scrap the end date, 31st March, the date required for our national accounting system, would lead to great risks for us.
§ Sir E. BoyleWill the right hon. Gentleman take from a former Financial 1848 Secretary that this is really not so simple as the hon. Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg) has suggested, and that, in the case of Departments whose pattern of expenditure is such that their work cannot easily be divided or end-stopped between years, the Treasury has tried to take this into account in dealing with their estimates?
§ The Prime MinisterYes, Sir. This was one of the main themes of the Plowden Report, and I seem to remember —the right hon. Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong—that it was the theme of a speech of the right hon. Gentleman himself when he was Financial Secretary four or five years ago, before the Plowden Committee reported. One of the problems of continuing expenditure, where it is committed in one year and spent in another, is that it represents already a breach in this particular form.