This matter is so self-evident in any parliamentary democracy which wants that the Lower House should be the sole custodian, watch-dog of matters financial, that it seems to me that this proposition should be unchallengeable. It is in no way departing from the spirit or accepted convention of the model Constitution which we have been following in this Draft, I mean the British practice. There it is very clear by convention, because there is no written constitution in Britain, that the House of Commons is the sole supreme authority in matters of Public Finance. Those of us who follow that model, and provide a written Constitution, would be doing nothing more than giving effect to a well-known convention whereby the Parliament or the House of the People alone would be competent to make any alternations in such financial provisions, whether they relate to expenditure or revenue, or whether they relate to otherwise disposing of or altering the financial provisions for a given year. Only the vote of the House of the People should be supreme and final in these matters and no other authority should have a say in it. Once the Financial Statement is placed before the House of the People, no other authority should have or can have anything to do with it. I therefore commend this to the House.
