Introduction

The finance of the country is ultimately associated with the liberties of the country… If the House of Commons by any possibility lose the power of the control of the grants of public money, depend upon it, your very liberty will be worth very little in comparison. That powerful leverage has been what is commonly known as the power of the purse – the control of the House of Commons over public expenditure.

How did parliaments come to exercise the budgetary roles they have today? Why do they participate in the budget process in the first place? To answer these questions, and as a background to the subsequent units, this unit provides a brief overview of some key stages in the evolution of the role of parliament in budgeting. The following sections look at the struggle to ensure parliamentary consent to taxation, how the rise of modern budgeting helped parliament to control expenditures, and more recent developments relating to the role of legislatures in budgeting.