House of Commons Financial Plan and Draft Estimates

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the House of Commons Financial Plan 2019-20 to 2022-23 and draft Estimates for 2019-20.

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. This is the first time we have had a debate such as this since 2014, and I think that all members of the Finance Committee feel that it is a shame and a mistake that we have not had one every year. I do not think we are the only people in Parliament who think that the management of the expenditure on the House and the way we do our business in Parliament has for years not been done as efficiently and effectively as it might be. In 2014, the Committee did have a debate of this kind. It took place on the Floor of the House and the expectation was that it would become an annual event. However, because we had general elections in 2015 and 2017, there was no Committee in place to ask for a debate, so we did not have one.

In the end, we are talking about taxpayers’ money here. Personally, I would be very critical of the whole way in which we spend taxpayers’ money in this country, in the sense that we theoretically have debates on estimates, but we never or very rarely have votes on them. We can only cut the amount of money being spent; we cannot reallocate from one estimate to another. To all intents and purposes, we do not really have a budget in this country, but a Budget statement. We do not have a budget in the sense that most other Parliaments in the world—or, for that matter, most local authorities—would understand the word. Therefore, the Finance Committee, which I chair, thinks it important that at least for this bit, which is the money spent on Parliament itself, we show a degree of discretion and try to get to the bottom of some of the key issues facing us.

We all also want to see far better responsibility and accountability for financial decisions made within the two parliamentary estimates that I will talk about. The two estimates, as I am sure you know, Mr Howarth, are the administration estimate and the Members estimate. The Members estimate is now much smaller than the admin estimate. I cannot for the life of me understand why we still have two estimates. I understand that the Government object to binding these two estimates together, but I cannot understand why. The admin estimate is far bigger than the Members estimate, and having the two separate just seems an unnecessary additional administrative burden.

In relation to the admin estimate, which as I said is far larger, the process is iterative. That is to say that as we advance towards the final estimate being laid, we on the Finance Committee provide advice to the House of Commons Commission, and that informs the estimate that is eventually laid. Quite often in that process, we on the Finance Committee have tried to bring decisions earlier, so that the Commission can be better informed and we can have a more strategic look at the whole of our finances. Part of what governs that is that we set a remit for the resource element of the admin estimate. At the moment, that assumes zero real-terms growth. That is partly because we have been making some £15.5 million-worth of savings, which we can then reinvest. Those are not just cuts; they are genuine savings. We are doing more for less money and we can then put the money back into the resource element of the admin budget.

We do have some exceptions and I worry, as Chair of the Committee, that the number of exceptions always grows; it never seems to diminish. For instance, we allow ourselves, quite rightly, an exception from the remit for increased scrutiny of Government. Brexit has led to an extra Select Committee. That has a cost, because there have to be Clerks and there has to be Committee time and there are printing costs and all the rest of it. Indeed, in recent years, the Select Committee process has become one of the most important elements of the way we do our business in Parliament, and consequently there has been a dramatic increase in the amount of work that those Committees are doing. The Liaison Committee, which gathers together the Chairs of all the Select Committees, made a passionate plea for an additional £1.3 million this year, and we think that that is an important additional piece of expenditure.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman is outlining his case very cogently. He has talked about the expansion of Select Committees. Does he agree that, hopefully in the very near future, the Exiting the European Union Committee will not have much more to do?

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, but for a completely different reason: I hope that we will be exiting Brexit rather than Brexiting, although I do not think that that is a matter for this debate, Mr Howarth.