Mr. PALMERasked the Prime Minister whether any details of the policy now being carried out by the Ministry of 426W Transport are submitted to the Cabinet for approval; if so, whether the Cabinet approved the proposal to appoint seven area-transport commissioners at salaries of £800 rising to £1,000 a year, together with a Foreign intelligence officer at a similar salary and 35 clerical assistants at an aggregate cost to the taxpayer of £4,200 a year; whether the Government ', are aware of the public feeling aroused e by these proposals; and will he give the a House and the country an assurance that e no large expenditure of the Transport Ministry will be made without the express sanction of the Cabinet?
Mr. CHAMBERLAINExpenditure by the Ministry of Transport is treated like expenditure by any other Department, except that, as the hon. Member is aware, the Treasury have a representative of their own permanently engaged in the Ministry. No expenditure is incurred without Treasury sanction and Cabinet approval is obtained as and when it is thought necessary. As regards the particular appointments named in the question, they were sanctioned by the Treasury and were not criticised by the Select Committee on National Expenditure in their recent Report. I think that that fact may be taken as proof that they are neither unnecessary nor extravagant.
Mr. PALMERasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in submitting Estimates to the Treasury, it is usual for Ministers to specify the cost of any particular branch of their Department or of any proposed new policy; whether the Minister of Transport rendered details of the cost of his scheme for setting up area-transport commissioners with attendant staffs; and what were the sums, if any, sanctioned by the Treasury?
Mr. CHAMBERLAINThe answer to the first two parts of the question is in the affirmative. Details as to the sums authorised by the Treasury have already been published in the Estimates of the Ministry of Transport.