TNAG-0525-FCO40-620-Visit-of-UK-Members-of-Parliament-(Defence-and-External-Affa-1975 — Page 216

CONFIDENTIAL

Policy

28. In the past the Estimates Committee (like the Public Accounts

Committee) was concerned, not with policy, but with the way in which

given policy was implemented. It had no locus to question the policy

lying behind the expenditure figures. This limitation does not apply

to the Expenditure Committee or to the specialist Committees but care

must be taken in the interpretation of these Committees' interest in

policy. It is for officials to answer questions of fact and to

explain the administrative reasoning behind a policy, and to answer

questions in the field between day-to-day administration and high

policy which might be called "administrative policy". keyond this,

the Committees' concern with policy should be interpreted as concern

with existing policy, which officials should be prepared to explain

and which the Committee will, of course, be free to criticise. It

is not, in the Government's view, any proper part of the Committee's

role to enter into the process of the formulation of policy, which

is a matter for Government, or to put forward alternative policies

to those embodied in the published expenditure figures, and officials

should avoid being drawn into discussion covering this sort of ground.

In some cases Ministers muy agree to proposals for new policies being offered by Departments for discussion with the Committee, and in such

cases officials will, of course, have to be ready to give relevant

evidence. But this which is entirely at the Government's own

choice should be regarded as the limit of the Committees' role in

policy formulation. If officials are asked questions in the field

of political controversy, using the term in its widest sense, they

should say that this is a matter for Ministers on which they cannot

answer. It is recognised that the dividing line may often be

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