The Government of England (Vol. I)

by A. Lawrence Lowell

In proposing his new procedure for supply in 1896, Mr. Balfour spoke of the belief that the object of debating the appropriations is to secure economical administration, as an ancient superstition no longer at all true. Members, he said, now move reductions in order to get from ministers a promise of future increase; and the danger is that the House will urge too much extravagance. He insisted that the real object of the Committee of Supply is the chance it affords to private members of criticising the executive and administrative action of the government; that it is an open platform for members, where the ministers, for the sake of getting their appropriations passed, are bound to keep a quorum.[344:1] This is, indeed, manifest to any one familiar with the debates upon the estimates. They are not to any great extent discussions of financial questions, of what the nation can, or cannot, afford to do. They are a long series of criticisms upon the policy of the ministers, and the conduct of the departments under their control. From this point of view Mr. Balfour suggested a method of making the debates more valuable. He described the futility of the old system of taking up the estimates in their numerical order, pointing out how much time was wasted every year in discussing the earlier votes in Class I.,—repairs of royal palaces, etc.,—while some of the largest appropriations were always hurried through with little comment at the fag end of the session. He promised in future to bring forward the important votes in the earlier part of the year, and in fact to give precedence to estimates that any group of members might wish to discuss.[344:2]

Adding together the days regularly allotted to supply under the standing order, the additional sittings used for the purpose, and those devoted to supplementary estimates,[344:3] the better part of more than thirty days are spent every year in Committee of Supply. This would appear to give time enough for a thorough overhauling of many branches of the administration; and under Mr. Balfour's practice, which will, no doubt, be followed by future cabinets, the question what departments shall be examined is determined by the critics themselves.

The debates in the Committee of Supply must be relevant to the estimates under consideration, that is, they must be confined to the particular vote then before the House, and the conduct of the government connected therewith. The greater part of the time is therefore taken up with a discussion of small details of administration. But there are certain votes that give a chance to review the broader questions of policy. As the grants made to the Army and Navy for one purpose can, with the consent of the Treasury, be used for another, the debate on the great votes for the pay of the men is allowed to range over the general policy and management of the service concerned.[345:1] The items for the salaries of the ministers give a similar, though less comprehensive, chance to examine the policy pursued in their several departments; and in order to raise a debate of that kind it is common to move to reduce the salary of a minister by one hundred pounds. If an excessive proportion of the time devoted to supply is consumed in the ventilation of small grievances, that is due to the fact that the criticism is conducted, in the main, by individual members of the House, and not by an organised opposition; but at least it has the merit of keeping the administration in all its details highly sensitive to public opinion.

Amendments in Supply as an Expression of Opinion.

The debates in supply afford an excellent opportunity for criticising the acts of the government, but the divisions in supply are not an effective means of expressing the judgment of the House upon those acts. The items of appropriation are grouped into votes, each of which, as its name implies, is passed as a single vote; and every vote contains so many items that the House cannot reject it entirely.

Moreover, the only amendment in order is a motion to reduce the vote, by omitting a particular item or otherwise. Now a reduction may be moved either because the House really objects to the appropriation, or as a means of expressing condemnation of some act of the government connected with the item in question. Even in these days of extravagance the House occasionally objects to an appropriation on the ground that it is unnecessary or excessive, or because it disapproves of the purpose altogether. In such cases the Chancellor of the Exchequer is apt to withdraw the estimate or consent to the reduction. In fact, there have been only two instances in the last twenty years where a reduction was made for this reason without the consent of the government, and only one where it was carried against their opposition.[346:1]

Reductions used as a Protest.

A reduction is often moved, on the other hand, to emphasise some grievance, some act of the administration that is the subject of complaint. But such a motion is not an effective means of testing the opinion of the House upon the matter in debate. When, for example, a reduction of a minister's salary is proposed in order to draw attention to a shortcoming in his department, the supporters of the cabinet almost invariably vote against the reduction without regard to their opinion upon the shortcoming in question; and they are perfectly right in so doing. They would be quite justified, and quite logical, in refusing to vote the reduction in salary, while saying that the act complained of had been a mistake and ought not to occur again. An amendment of that kind is, therefore, seldom carried; and then usually by accident. It has happened only four times in a score of years. On June 14, 1895, when Lord Rosebery's cabinet was struggling for its life, with only a majority of a dozen in the Commons, it was beaten on an amendment reducing the appropriation for the Parliament buildings by five hundred pounds to call attention to the quantity of rooms occupied by officials of the House. The number of members who took part in the division was so small—the vote being sixty-three to forty-three—that the result must be regarded as a fluke, rather than as an expression of opinion by the House. A week later the government was defeated again on an amendment to reduce the salary of the Secretary of State for War by one hundred pounds to draw attention to an alleged lack of supply of cordite. This was done by a trick. Enough Conservatives to turn the scale were brought into the House, by way of the terrace, without the knowledge of the whips on either side. Under ordinary circumstances the ministers would not have paid much attention to such a division, but their position in this case was so precarious and so uncomfortable, that they took advantage of the occurrence to resign. The third instance happened in 1904 when the grant for the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland was reduced by one hundred pounds as a protest against a circular they had issued which limited the teaching of the Irish language in the schools. It was a "snap" vote, coming suddenly after a very short debate. Had the ministers foreseen the division they could easily have called in enough of their followers to change the majority;[348:1] and, in fact, they seem to have disregarded the vote altogether, save that they expended for Irish education one hundred pounds less than they had intended. The last case was in 1905, when the appropriation for the Irish Land Commission was reduced by one hundred pounds as a protest against the administration of the Land Act of 1903. This was serious, and the government considered its position for a couple of days, but decided for the moment neither to resign nor dissolve.[348:2]

Manifestly the debates in Committee of Supply offer a very wide field for individual criticism, while they give little chance for collective condemnation of the matters criticised. This is even more obvious in certain other forms of procedure that are yet to be considered.

Debates on the Finance Bill;