Public spending: What’s unusual about this year’s Main Estimates?

Philip Brien

On 24 July 2024, the House of Commons will vote on whether to approve the Main Estimates for 2024/25. The Estimates are each government department’s spending plans for the year, and must be approved by Parliament before money can be spent. However, because of the timing of the general election, this year’s Estimates are unusual in several ways.

In this Insight, we look at what is different this time, and what it means for Parliament’s scrutiny of public spending.

How do the Estimates usually work?

In most years, each department submits two rounds of spending plans. The Main Estimates are published in May and voted on in July; they set out how much the department expects to spend in the current year and on which policy areas. These spending totals are then updated in February, shortly before the end of the financial year in March, in the Supplementary Estimates.

The Vote on Account also takes place in February, which allows departments to spend up to 45% of the previous year’s total in the following financial year. This officially permits the spending that occurs between the start of the new financial year and the next round of Main Estimates.

Parliament’s role in authorising spending

The Main Estimates for 2024/25 were published on 17 July 2024, and the Commons Library and House of Commons Scrutiny Unit have published a research briefing summarising their contents.

Overall, spending in this set of Main Estimates is £44.8 billion higher than the final spending figures for 2023/24, an increase of 3.9%. Day-to-day spending is £24.3 billion higher (+2.5%), while investment spending is £20.3 billion higher (+10.5%).

What’s different this time?

The 2024 general election took place in the middle of the usual Main Estimates schedule. As a result, although these Estimates are based on the Conservative government’s spending plans, they will be voted on under the Labour government.

There isn’t time to create entirely new plans, because if the Estimates are not approved soon then departments will run out of money as they reach the limits of their cover provided by the Vote on Account.

There are no select committees to scrutinise departments’ plans

Because select committees have not yet been set up in the new Parliament, they have been unable to scrutinise the Estimates as they normally would, and there is no Backbench Business Committee to decide which Estimates will receive a separate debate and vote. We therefore expect that the Estimates, and the £1,039 billion of public spending listed within them, will be approved without debate.

This isn’t unusual in election years. After the general elections of 2010, 2015 and 2017, there was no debate at all on the Main Estimates, and in both 2010 and 2015 they were voted through less than two weeks after being laid before Parliament. (In 2017, the lack of debate was brought up in a point of order, but the Speaker’s response was that there was “nothing underhand or disorderly” about the process.)

In most years, select committees publish “Estimates memoranda”: notes written by government departments, giving more detail on the Estimates. Because there are no committees, this year the memoranda are being published by government departments themselves (see, for example, HM Treasury’s memorandum).

There is no opportunity for amendments

There will likely be no possible way for Parliament to vote on amending the Estimates. Its opportunities to do so are always very limited (as we explained in a 2018 Insight on Parliament’s role in authorising spending plans), but it is unusual for the Commons to have only a single opportunity to either approve or vote down all spending plans in one go.

Parliament’s limited scrutiny of spending plans

The inability to amend or debate most Estimates is one of several institutional and structural factors in the UK Parliament that make it difficult for MPs to meaningfully scrutinise government spending plans. In evidence submitted to the Procedure Committee in 2018, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said the UK has a tradition of weak financial scrutiny, at least before spending takes place (its scrutiny of spending after the fact is considered to be somewhat stronger).

There have been attempts in recent years to give Parliament more of a role in scrutinising spending plans. In 2018, following a recommendation from Parliament’s Procedure Committee, the Liaison Committee agreed to give the role of selecting debates on Estimates days to the Backbench Business Committee in an informal arrangement. As a result, recent debates have focused far more on the contents of the Estimates than in previous years, and MPs have tried to bring the lack of scrutiny to the attention of the House. However, this arrangement expired at the end of the last Parliament, and it is not yet clear whether it will be replaced (and with what).