TNAG-0525-FCO40-620-Visit-of-UK-Members-of-Parliament-(Defence-and-External-Affa-1975 — Page 206

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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