CONFIDENTIAL
new Committee's terms of reference are:-
to consider any papers on public expenditure presented to the House and such of the estimates as may seem fit to the committee and in particular to consider how, if at all, the policies implied in the figures of expenditure and in the estimates may be carried out more economically, and to examine the form of the papers and of the estimates presented to the House.
These terms of reference enable the Committee to focus its attention
more on public expenditure (eg as presented in the annual White Paper
on Public Expenditure).
7. The Expenditure Committee has set up the following functional
sub-committees, each of eight members: -
Public Expenditure (General)
Trade and Industry
Employment and Social Services
Defence and External Affairs
Education and arts
Environment and Home Office
The sub-committees have no power to form sub-sub-committees.
8. The Green Paper (Cmnd 4507)
Cmnd 4507) stated that because the new Committee
unlike the Estimates Committee, would not be barred from considering
the policy behind the figures, there would be occasions when it would
be appropriate for Ministers to give evidence before it, as they have
before the specialist Committees and the Select Committee on
Nationalised Industries. of the other Committees, there is nothing
to prevent Ministers being summoned, or asking, to appear before the
Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner the Attorney-
General did so under the last administration; the PAC, however, always
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CONFIDENTIAL