House of Commons - Procedure

Select Committee on Procedure First Report

Appendix 2: Memorandum by the Clerk Assistant, House of Commons: Changes to Supply Procedure and the Estimates

1. Part 1 of this memorandum describes the role and working of the Supply procedure of the House of Commons, including changes to Supply procedure resulting from the introduction of Resource Accounting.

2. Part 2 considers the procedural implications of the Treasury's proposal to move from a single Appropriation Bill[25] in each normal Session to two Appropriation Bills in a normal Session and concludes that implementation of the proposal would carry no identifiable disadvantages and might be beneficial.

3. Part 3 examines the implications of the Treasury's proposal for the introduction of negative Supplementary Estimates, including the implications for the form of a relevant "Estimates Day" motion.

4. Part 4 contains proposals for additional changes to Supply procedure intended to complement those made by the Treasury. It is proposed that some changes should be made to the form of the motions for Supply resolutions to reflect more fully the content of the ensuing Appropriation Bills and that some revisions should be made to Standing Order No. 55, which governs the putting of questions on Supply motions that are not the subject of debate.

5. Part 5 suggests that some of the changes would require authorisation by the House of Commons by way of resolution and also deals with the timing of implementation of any changes that are agreed to.

Introduction

6. This memorandum has been prepared to assist the Procedure Committee, the Committee of Public Accounts, the Liaison Committee and the Treasury Committee in considering possible changes to the form of the Estimates and Supply procedure. The memorandum relates principally to the proposals contained in the documents accompanying the letters from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to the Chairmen of the Committees of 13 January 2004, but also includes separate proposals designed to complement those from the Treasury.

Part 1: An account of supply procedure

An introduction to Supply procedure

7. Supply procedure is the method by which the House of Commons makes provision for the statutory authorisation of ordinary annual expenditure[26] by the Government and by certain non-Government bodies, including the House of Commons itself.

8. Historically, debates and votes on Supply provided an opportunity for Members of the House of Commons to seek to exercise control over, and ensure scrutiny of, Government expenditure and administration. Over the last century or so, as alternative means of scrutiny have developed—most notably through the Select Committee system—Supply procedure has adapted in a way which virtually ensures formal authorisation of Government spending requests, while reserving some opportunities for debate of particular Estimates on "Estimates Days".

9. The apparent complexity of Supply proceedings derives in some measure from the fact that the processes of authorisation in respect of spending in a single financial year straddle three Parliamentary Sessions. Thus, in any one Session, the House is considering requests for authorisation in respect of three different financial years, often at the same time. The Sessional cycle and the cycle in respect of a financial year are summarised in Tables One and Two at the end of this memorandum, which are designed to illustrate the following account.

10. Most Government receipts from taxation and duties are paid into a single bank account at the Bank of England, known as the "Consolidated Fund", and money can only be released from this account for use by Government Departments and other bodies when that release has been or is to be authorised by statute.

11. In respect of each financial year, the Treasury presents to the House of Commons statements of the amounts of money proposed to be spent by each Government Department. These documents are known as "Estimates". They describe the purposes for which the expenditure is intended and give a breakdown of the proposed allocation of money within each departmental total. Although the requests for authorisation of expenditure are termed "Estimates", they are in fact precisely expressed proposals for limits on expenditure. The Estimates for the House of Commons Administration, the National Audit Office and the Electoral Commission take the same form as the Government's Estimates, but are presented separately.[27]

12. The expenditure to be paid from the Consolidated Fund to Government departments is expressed as net expenditure. Estimates also seek authorisation for certain income that does not arise from taxation, such as charges for Government services and rental income for Government buildings, to be retained by Departments rather than passed to the Consolidated Fund. By authorising limits on the retention of such receipts as well on net expenditure, the House maintains formal control over the total gross expenditure proposed for each Department.

13. Estimates presented in respect of each financial year are generally in one of four categories:[28]

i. "Votes on Account", generally presented in November of the preceding financial year, which seek authorisation for an initial payment from the Consolidated Fund to cover expenditure in the early months of the financial year, without the breakdown of planned expenditure and description of its purposes which is given in subsequent documents; advance authorisation is sought in this way because the Main Estimates are not usually authorised before July;

ii. "Main Estimates", generally presented at or shortly after the start of the financial year concerned, which set out the detail and purposes of proposed expenditure by each Department during the financial year and the overall amounts required, distinguishing between the amounts already authorised as a result of authorisation of the Votes on Account and the further amounts for which authorisation is being sought;

iii. "Supplementary Estimates", presented at any time after the publication of the Main Estimates during the relevant financial year, but usually published in June ("Summer"), November ("Winter") and February ("Spring"), which set out requests for authorisation for additional total expenditure on top of that already authorised as a result of the Main Estimates; Supplementary Estimates may also alter the internal division of overall allocations and expand the purposes of expenditure for which authorisation is required;

iv. "Excess Votes", usually presented in February of the financial year after that to which they relate, which set out instances of expenditure above that provided for in the preceding Estimates, or of expenditure other than on authorised purposes, for which retrospective authorisation is being sought.

14. The House's procedure for considering Estimates is governed by two general rules. The first is that relating to the financial initiative of the Crown, under which proposals for expenditure must originate with the Crown, i.e., the Government of the day. This rule means that the House of Commons is primarily concerned with translating the key material in these Estimates documents into legislative form and cannot propose expenditure in addition to that for which authorisation is sought by the Government, although the House (by agreeing to an amendment to a Supply motion of the kind described in paragraph 17) can reduce expenditure below limits proposed by the Government.

15. The second rule is that the Bills to provide final authorisation for releases of money from the Consolidated Fund as proposed in the Estimates and subsequently to appropriate that money can be introduced only after the prior consideration of motions for resolutions by the House. These "Supply resolutions" generally arise from one of the two types of motion described in the next two paragraphs.[29]

16. Motions in respect of the great bulk of expenditure are usually put before the House on three separate occasions during each Session, on days in December, in March and in June or July. Each motion proposes authorisation of outstanding expenditure totals for which authorisation has been sought in respect of a particular financial year (excluding relevant amounts for Estimates to be considered under the Estimates Day procedure described in the next paragraph). Under the terms of Standing Order No. 55, the question on each of these "roll-up" motions is put without debate, and without possibility of amendment, at the moment of interruption.

17. Certain Estimates motions are debated on "Estimates Days", when the subject for debate is chosen by the Liaison Committee and usually arises from a report of a departmental Select Committee. The terms of such a motion propose authorisation for outstanding expenditure for a particular financial year by the Department concerned, although the scope of debate is effectively determined by the Liaison Committee's choice of subject rather than the particulars of the motion. In most cases these motions serve as a peg on which to hang a debate covering policy and administration as well as expenditure in a particular field, rather than a specific opportunity to debate the content of Estimates documents. Estimates Day motions can be the subject of amendment, although, in the light of the rule that proposals for expenditure must originate with the Crown, no amendment can be selected which does not take the form of a proposal to reduce expenditure.

18. Immediately after the resolutions arising from the motions described in the last two paragraphs have been passed in December and March, a Bill is introduced, known as a "Consolidated Fund Bill", which gives legislative form to the authorisation of the total amounts of net expenditure proposed in the outstanding Estimates. Such Bills pass through all stages in both Houses without debate (and without a Committee stage). The House of Lords is anyway effectively prevented from amending Consolidated Fund and Appropriation Bills because they are certified by the Speaker as Money Bills under the Parliament Act 1911. When Consolidated Fund Bills receive Royal Assent, they provide the statutory authority for the release of money from the Consolidated Fund to Departments.

19. The final Supply Bill of each Session, which usually follows the last Supply resolutions of the Session in June or July, is known as the "Appropriation Bill". In part this Bill performs the same function as the Consolidated Fund Bills—authorising release of money up to new expenditure limits set out in the preceding resolutions—but the Appropriation Bill also performs other functions: it allocates the amounts authorised in respect of each financial year to individual departments; it specifies the purposes for which those individual amounts may be spent; and it sets the limits on the levels of income that may be retained by departments to offset their expenditure.[30] The Appropriation Bill translates the key provisions of all of the Estimates documents approved during the Session into statutory form. Like Consolidated Fund Bills, the Appropriation Bill passes through the House without opportunity for debate.

20. When it receives Royal Assent, the Appropriation Act sets the statutory benchmarks in relation to which Departmental Resource Accounts are prepared and then audited by the National Audit Office. The audit process examines not only whether expenditure limits have been exceeded, but also whether all money has been spent for the purposes for which expenditure was authorised.

The impact of Resource Accounting

21. Prior to financial year 2001-02, public expenditure was planned and subject to Parliamentary control solely on the basis of cash sums, with transactions recorded when money changed hands. The preceding account of Supply procedure is expressed in these traditional cash terms. However, from 2001-02 a new method of "Resource Accounting" was introduced, under which revenues and costs are recognised in the accounts at the time when they are earned or incurred—when goods or services are received, or assets consumed. This led to the establishment from that year of a system of dual Parliamentary authorisation, for the resources to be used during a financial year, as well as for the cash to be paid out of the Consolidated Fund during a financial year.

22. Following consultation between the Treasury, the National Audit Office and interested Select Committees, new forms were agreed for motions for Supply resolutions and for Supply Bills to give effect to the system for dual authorisation of resources and cash, taking account of the additional statutory requirements arising from the Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000, which provided the statutory basis for Resource Accounting. A failure properly to adapt to the need to give authorisation for the modification of limits on certain appropriations in aid in the Appropriation Act 2002 arising from the introduction of Resource Accounting necessitated the passage of a second Appropriation Act in that year to correct the error.[31] An undertaking was given at that time that further consideration would be given to the implications of Resource Accounting for the treatment of appropriations in aid and that further consideration both led to more extensive provisions on that subject in the Appropriation Act 2003 and gives rise to some of the proposals in Part 4 of this memorandum.

Part 2: Frequency of Appropriation Bills

The purpose of Appropriation

23. The sessional Appropriation Bill is the key statutory expression of the outcome of the Supply proceedings of the House of Commons during that Session and the Appropriation Act provides the ultimate legal authority for both the extent and the purposes of the Government's ordinary annual expenditure. In particular, the Appropriation Act provides the key benchmarks against which voted expenditure is audited. As matters stand, Appropriation Bills are usually introduced once a year at the conclusion of the Session's Supply proceedings in June or July.

The Treasury's proposal

24. The Treasury's memorandum proposes that this current pattern be changed, so that a first (Spring) Appropriation Bill in March would appropriate amounts authorised by Supply proceedings in relation to the financial year already completed (arising from Excess Votes) and the financial year about to be completed (arising from Winter and Spring Supplementary Estimates); and a second (Summer) Appropriation Bill in June or July would appropriate amounts authorised by Supply proceedings in relation to the financial year then underway (arising from Votes on Account, Main Estimates and Summer Supplementary Estimates).

The rationale for unified Sessional appropriation and the implications of the change

25. A key principle which underpins the Supply proceedings of the House is that the Supply resolutions (even when given initial statutory effect through a Consolidated Fund Act) are effectively provisional in nature and must be validated by an Appropriation Act passed during the same Session in which the resolutions were passed. As the Treasury itself notes in paragraph 11 of its memorandum, this fundamental principle is not undermined by its proposals.

26. The Annex to this memorandum describes the historical background to the House's current practice. There is nothing new about passing two Appropriation Bills in one Session. The Annex identifies three sets of circumstances which have led in the past to two or more Appropriation Bills being passed in a single Session:

when additional Supply has been authorised after the conclusion of the House's usual Sessional Supply proceedings;

when the usual cycle of Supply proceedings (beginning in December and concluding in July) has been interrupted by a General Election; and

when it has been necessary to correct an error in a previous Appropriation Act before the passage of the following Sessional Appropriation Bill.

27. Each of these individual departures from the practice of unified Sessional appropriation has been in some ways exceptional, whereas the Treasury is now proposing a systematic and permanent departure from the practice of unified Sessional appropriation.

28. It is suggested in the Annex that there were two underlying historical reasons for the development and maintenance of the practice of unified Sessional appropriation. These related to the reconciliation of the total of individual grants with the total amounts authorised and to the House's endeavours to maintain what was viewed as a potential check on the premature prorogation or dissolution of Parliament by the Executive.

29. Historically, appropriation involved the unification and reconciliation of the separate financial processes for the authorisation of individual items of expenditure and for the authorisation of funding for such expenditure by the release of money from the Consolidated Fund. Until 1966 these two distinct processes ran in parallel during the Session and could only reliably be combined when both processes had been concluded. As a result of changes to Supply procedure in 1966, these processes are no longer distinct. In consequence, although the reconciliation of the amounts authorised for individual items of expenditure with the overall totals granted for expenditure remains a fundamental aspect of the Appropriation Bill—and an essential method of guaranteeing that no money has been granted to the Government which has not been appropriated—any failure in the reconciliation process must necessarily arise from an administrative error in the preparation of Estimates documents or of Supply motions or Bills, rather than from inconsistent decisions by the House.

30. The second underlying reason for reserving appropriation until towards the end of the Session was to stop the Executive bringing a Session to a premature conclusion through dissolution or prorogation. In any case where supply was voted but not appropriated during the same Session, the initial authorisation would be invalidated. Under the Treasury's proposals, this role of appropriation as a constitutional check would be retained. If all amounts voted during the first part of the Session were appropriated in the first (Spring) Appropriation Bill, theoretically the Executive would have no need of a sitting Parliament for authority to spend money in the early months of the Summer. However, the amounts authorised in response to the Votes on Account (the advance request for authorisation for expenditure in the early months of the new financial year starting in April) would still not be appropriated in the Spring, even though the provisional authorisation would have been given in December. By withholding appropriation of any amounts in respect of the new financial year until the second, Summer Appropriation Bill, the House would effectively ensure that the constitutional propriety of expenditure in the new financial year would be called into question in any case where Parliament was prorogued or dissolved without the passage of a further Appropriation Act.[32]

31. The unified process of reconciliation for all amounts voted during a Session would be ended as a result of the change proposed by the Treasury, although the process of reconciliation would be maintained as a discrete process in respect of each financial year. Because any individual authorisation through Supply procedure is necessarily confined to a single financial year, the essential assurance against unappropriated Supply provided by reconciliation would be retained following a move to two regular Appropriation Bills each Session.

32. Given that the key underlying principles would seem to be maintained following the transition to two regular Sessional Appropriation Bills, the remaining questions for consideration by the Committees would appear to be whether the change would offer sufficient advantages to warrant a departure from long-standing practice and whether all practical implications of the change have been properly considered.

The benefits of change

33. The key benefit identified by the Treasury from the change to two Sessional Appropriation Bills is permitting departmental resource accounts to be certified by the Comptroller and Auditor General and then laid before Parliament more promptly—"faster closing" (see paragraphs 15 to 22 of the Treasury memorandum). As matters stand, in any case where Winter or Spring Supplementary Estimates or both are authorised in relation to an Estimate, the resource accounts in respect of that Estimate cannot be certified until after the main sessional Appropriation Bill receives the Royal Assent, usually in mid-July.

34. Faster closing offers benefits to Government departments, which the Treasury has noted.[33] Faster closing also offers potential advantages to Committees examining departmental expenditure. It is common for the cycle of scrutiny of spending outcomes and plans by departmental Select Committees to begin in the late Spring or early Summer, soon after the publication of departmental annual reports and the Main Estimates; the availability of departmental resource accounts at an earlier stage has the potential to enhance scrutiny at this time. In addition, the earlier certification of accounts might provide the Committee of Public Accounts with a longer period for the examination of Excess Votes.[34]

35. The introduction of an additional Spring Appropriation Bill permits faster closing. But it does not of itself guarantee faster closing. Unless the Treasury proposes to make an order under section 22 of the Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000 to bring forward the deadlines for submitting accounts to the Comptroller and Auditor General and for the subsequent certification and laying of accounts, there would be no statutory requirement for certification to take place earlier than mid-January in the following calendar year. As matters stand, departmental resource accounts can already be certified in May or June in the case of any Estimate which is not the subject of Winter or Spring Supplementary Estimates, but prompt closing in such cases is still rare. The Treasury's memorandum refers to some resource accounts that were ready for early certification in June or July 2003 (paragraph 21) and indicates that the number of accounts ready by July will increase in future years (paragraph 18).

36. The Treasury's memorandum mentions two additional benefits of the switch to two Sessional Appropriations Bills, relating to the timing of the authorisation of expenditure, particularly on new services, and the clarity and accessibility of Appropriation Acts (see paragraphs 23 to 25 of the Treasury memorandum).

37. The Appropriation Act usually forms one part of a twin track process of Parliamentary authorisation of public services, the other track being specific legislative approval for departmental activities or services (following the passage of Money resolutions relating to the Bills in question). However, in certain restricted circumstances, the Treasury agrees that Departments can incur expenditure resting on the sole authority of the Appropriation Act—in other words, the use of money voted through Supply procedure without any other legislative sanction for the expenditure.[35] The expenditure resting on the sole authority of the Appropriation Act is often quite significant: in the case of the 2003 Act, such provision included support and loans from the Department of Transport to National Air Traffic Services of up to £30,000,000 and grant to the Arts Council of England (a body established by Royal Charter) of up to £335,455,000.[36]

38. In the case of any expenditure resting on the sole authority of the Appropriation Act arising from the Winter or Spring Supplementary Estimates, the necessary legal authority would be provided at an earlier point were the relevant Appropriation Bill to be passed in March rather than in July. It is not evident whether any direct benefit to Parliament arises from a reduction in the length of the period of anticipation, although it is does seem desirable in principle that the period for which retrospection is required in such Bills be reduced.[37]

39. The final benefit mentioned by the Treasury in paragraph 25 of its memorandum is that the information in Appropriation Acts would become more accessible because the distinction between financial years would be clearer. The Appropriation Act is not an easy read and is not generally a recommended first port of call for a person seeking to understand the detail of expenditure authorised by Parliament. There may be a small advantage in the earlier and distinct availability of the statutory authorisation for expenditure proposed in the Winter and Spring Supplementary Estimates just before the end of the financial year to which they relate.

Practical implications

40. The Clerk of Supply in the Public Bill Office has prepared a paper on the practical implications of the Treasury's proposals for two regular Sessional Appropriation Bills each Session. This paper has been sent to the Clerks of the Committees so that it can be made available to members. It has also been sent to the Treasury to initiate a dialogue on some outstanding practical issues. It is not considered at the moment that any of the practical implications represents a barrier to the implementation of the Treasury's proposals.

Conclusions

41. If the Treasury's proposal were implemented, the broad principles which underpin and explain the practice of sessional appropriation would be maintained. Therefore, assuming the Committees are satisfied that the proposal would bring benefits, there would appear to be no procedural or practical reason for them not to be supported, subject to the appropriate approval being given by the House in accordance with the proposals in Part 5 of this memorandum.

Part 3: Negative Supplementary Estimates

42. The Treasury memorandum also seeks approval for a proposal to establish a new system whereby New or Supplementary Estimates published after the statutory authorisation of the Main Estimates and the Summer Supplementary Estimates could reduce the limits on expenditure and resources below the levels authorised by the House and reflected in the Summer Appropriation Act. This would be used to give effect to machinery of government changes and certain cases where an increase in one Request for Resources (the sub-division of an Estimate) is being offset by a commensurate reduction in another Request for Resources within the same Estimate.

43. The current method by which machinery of government changes in the course of a financial year are reflected in the Supplementary Estimates is, as the Treasury memorandum observes, extremely complex. In essence, the money for the functions affected is paid to the Department from which the function is being transferred and that Department then pays the relevant amount to the Department which is assuming the function. For the Department assuming the function, the amounts originally allocated to another Department are then recorded as income appropriated in aid; only additional amounts appear in the net expenditure columns, although a token amount (usually £1,000) would be required to be voted in the absence of any additional amount to ensure that there is a positive amount requiring Parliamentary authorisation.

44. The reason for using this roundabout method is that it has previously been considered that an Appropriation Bill cannot reduce an amount already authorised under a previous Appropriation Act. The maximum amount set in an Appropriation Act has been viewed as an indelible minimum. The possibility of any such retrospective reduction in the past (before the Bills themselves and the bulk of the founding resolutions became unamendable) would have run the risk of an Accounting Officer being exposed to an unforeseen reduction of his total budget at a late stage in the financial year for reasons wholly outside his control.

45. Requests for negative authorisations are not unprecedented. However, in the past, negative authorisation has been limited to cases where a Main Estimate seeks total provision below that already authorised in a Vote on Account, but not yet appropriated.[38]

46. In modern circumstances, where Supply procedure reflects the political reality that the House is expected to give direct effect to all proposals contained in Estimates, there would seem to be no risk to an Accounting Officer's position arising from the Treasury's proposal. It is assumed that any increase in a Supplementary Estimate which arises from machinery of government changes and is offset by a reduction in another Estimate would be clearly distinguishable from a substantive increase in provision for which new authority is being sought. If this assumption is correct and if the National Audit Office is content with the change, there would appear to be no reason for the Committees not to support the Treasury's proposed use of Negative Supplementary Estimates.

47. Most Negative Supplementary Estimates would be authorised as part of "roll-up" motions of the kind described in paragraph 16, but a form would need to be agreed for a motion for the (admittedly very rare) case where a Negative Supplementary Estimate were chosen as the subject for debate on an Estimates Day, as might be appropriate, for example, if there were a Select Committee Report on the abolition of a Department of State. Based on precedents from the period prior to the introduction of Resource-based Supply, it is suggested that such a motion would take the following form:

"That, in respect of the Estimate for expenditure by the Department for Administrative Affairs, the amount of resources authorised for use during the year ending with 31st March 2005 be reduced by £66,000,000 and that the balance to be surrendered to the Consolidated Fund for the year ending with 31st March 2005 be £55,000,000."

48. In conformity with the rule that no amendment to a Supply motion is in order that provides for an overall increase in expenditure, the proper form for an amendment to such a motion would be an amendment to increase the reduction.

Part 4: Other changes relating to supply procedure

Complementary changes to Supply procedure

49. In the light of the fact that the Committees are being asked to consider changes relating to Supply procedure proposed by the Treasury, the Committees may also wish to consider some separate proposals which are designed to complement the Treasury's proposals and which, like the Treasury's proposed changes, reflect the initial experience of Resource-based Supply.

Authorisation of limits on appropriations in aid

50. The first additional proposal relates to the form of authorisation of limits on "appropriations in aid"—the income received by Departments that is to be retained by them to offset gross expenditure rather than being paid into the Consolidated Fund.

51. Prior to 1891, almost all Government receipts were paid into the Consolidated Fund, even when they were not in the form of taxes and duties. This was seen as the most effective way to retain Parliamentary control over expenditure.[39] Under legislation passed in 1891, the Treasury was empowered to direct that receipts could be appropriated in aid of money provided by Parliament, with the amounts appropriated in aid then being subject to audit as if they had been voted by Parliament, thus ensuring the same measure of control over all sums expended.[40] Following the coming into force of that Act, the annual Appropriation Act included the limits set on appropriations in aid, although there was no statutory requirement for those limits to be set out in an Appropriation Act.

52. The Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000 replaced the 1891 provision with an updated version for Resource-based Supply, but with an additional explicit requirement that any authorisation of appropriations in aid by Treasury direction must be "subject to any limit set by an Appropriation Act".[41] By making such a reference to these limits a necessary component of Appropriation Bills, this could be argued to have the effect of making the information relating to limits on appropriations in aid more substantive content of Appropriation Bills than had previously been the case.

53. It is a general rule of the House that Bills brought in upon resolutions (such as Finance Bills and Appropriation Bills) cannot contain substantive content which is not authorised by those resolutions. Therefore, there is a case for updating the motions for Supply resolutions to place it beyond doubt that the resolutions provide authority for the inclusion of provision about limits on appropriations in aid, and that the House is authorising the maximum levels of gross as well as net expenditure. This could be achieved by adding the words highlighted below at the end of Supply motions authorising Estimates which propose new limits on appropriations in aid or modifications of previously set limits:

"That further resources, not exceeding £194,587,132,000, be authorised for use for defence and civil services for the year ending with 31st March 2005, and that a further sum, not exceeding £126,882,161,000, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to meet the costs of defence and civil services for the year ending with 31st March 2005, as set out in HC 648, 655, 656 and 657, and that the limits on appropriations in aid to be set for the purposes of section 2 of the Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000 for the year ending with 31st March 2005 be authorised, as set out in HC 648, 655, 656 and 657."

54. The phrase "to be set for the purposes of section 2 of the Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000" indicates the purpose of the limits without pre-empting the setting and modification of limits, which can only be done in an Appropriation Act. The relevant Estimates documents are referred to as the source for the limits and modifications being authorised, a practice already established for other elements of Supply motions. The opportunity provided by implementation of this substantive change would also be taken to make one drafting change to such motions, changing the word "on" to "with" before 31st March. "With" is used in the Appropriation Act 2003 and has the merit of avoiding any ambiguity as to whether or not 31st March itself is included within the financial year that ends on that day.

Changes to Standing Order No. 55

55. Standing Order No. 55 governs the putting of questions on all Supply motions which are not debated, which is almost all Supply motions other than those serving as the basis for Estimates Day debates. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury has indicated his support for the proposal made by the Liaison Committee to increase the minimum period of time between the laying of Winter and Spring Supplementary Estimates and the subsequent votes in the House from "seven clear days" (effectively eight days) to fourteen days.

56. If this substantive change were to be made, the opportunity could also be taken to revise the text of this Standing Order to reflect the requirements of Resource Accounting and also to amend the text in consequence of the proposal just made relating to the formal authorisation of limits on appropriations in aid, if it were to be endorsed. The following proposed new text of Standing Order No. 55 (with additions and deletions highlighted) gives effect to all of these changes:

Questions on voting of estimates, &c.
  55.—(1) On any day to which the provisions of paragraphs (2), (3) or (4) of this order apply the Speaker shall at the moment of interruption put the questions on—
    (a)  any outstanding vote relating to numbers for defence services;
(b)  any motion authorising amounts, and limits on appropriations in aid, set out in outstanding estimates ~~the total amount outstanding in respect of each financial year to be granted out of the Consolidated Fund for the purposes defined in the related votes~~.
  (2) The provisions of paragraph (1) of this order shall apply on a day not later than 6th February, if any of the following total amounts have been put down for consideration:
    (a)  votes on account for the coming financial year;
    (b)  supplementary and new estimates for the current financial year which have been presented at least fourteen ~~seven clear~~ days previously.
  (3) The provisions of paragraph (1) of this order shall apply on a day not later than 18th March, if any of the following numbers or total amounts have been put down for consideration:
    (a)  votes relating to numbers for defence services;
    (b)  supplementary and new estimates for the current financial year which have been presented at least fourteen ~~seven clear~~ days previously;
    (c)  excess votes, provided that the Committee of Public Accounts has reported that it sees no objection to the ~~sums~~ amounts and modifications to limits on appropriations in aid necessary being authorised ~~provided~~ by excess vote.
  (4) The provisions of paragraph (1) of this order shall apply on a day not later than 5th August in respect of any motion authorising amounts, and limits on appropriations in aid, set out in outstanding estimates~~, if the total amount of estimates which are still outstanding has been put down for consideration~~.
  (5) At least two days' notice shall be given of the motions ~~votes~~ which are to be put down for consideration under paragraphs (2), (3) or (4) of this order.
  (6) The provisions of this order shall not apply to any vote of credit or votes for supplementary or additional estimates for war expenditure.