The Government of England (Vol. I)

by A. Lawrence Lowell

As grants of money can be taken up only in Committee of the Whole, and only on the recommendation of the Crown,—that is, of a minister—the House resolves itself, early in the session, into Committee of the Whole on Supply, to consider the estimates submitted by the government.[283:4]

Consolidated Fund Charges.

Estimates for the Supply Services.

Now it will be remembered that certain charges, such as the interest on the national debt, the royal civil list, and the salaries of the judges, are payable by statute out of the Consolidated Fund, and hence do not require an annual vote of Parliament, or come before the Committee of Supply. The estimates for the rest of the expenditures for the coming year, known as the supply services, are divided into three parts, relating to the Army, the Navy, and the civil services. The last of the three is divided into classes, and all of them are divided into grants or votes, which are in turn subdivided into subheads and items. Each grant is the subject of a separate vote in Committee of Supply, and amendments may be moved to omit or reduce any item therein.

Votes on Account.

The English financial system aims at precision. It is deemed of great importance that the estimates should be as accurate as they can be made, and hence they must be prepared as short a time as possible before going into effect. They are made up in the several departments late in the autumn, then submitted for revision to the Treasury, and laid before Parliament shortly after it meets about the middle of February. But as the financial year begins on April 1, it is manifest that the Committee of Supply cannot finish its discussion of them by that time. With the work it must do in passing upon supplementary estimates for the current year, it can, in fact, make little progress with those of the coming year during March, and yet money must be spent, and there must be legal authority to spend it, especially as the unspent balances of appropriations lapse at the close of the financial year in which they are voted. The committee, therefore, passes votes on account to cover the time until the regular appropriations are made. The reader will, perhaps, recall the fact that in the military and naval services an excess on one grant may, with the approval of the Treasury, be used to cover deficiencies on other grants, and hence it is the habit in the case of those services to vote in March the grant for the pay and wages of the men for the whole year, and use the money so obtained for all purposes until the appropriations have been completed. In the civil services, where this is not allowed, votes on account are passed for all the grants, large enough to carry on the government for four or five months.

Supplementary Grants.

With the utmost effort at accuracy in the estimates they will always prove to be insufficient in some branch of the service, or an unexpected need for expenditure will arise; and to provide funds in such cases supplementary estimates must be presented and voted before the close of the financial year.

Excess Grants.