Estimates Day debate: Spending of the Ministry of Justice and Home Office on criminal justice

On Monday 29 June 2026, there will be an Estimates Day Debate on the spending of the Ministry of Justice and Home Office on criminal justice. The topic for the debate was proposed by the Backbench Business Committee, on application from Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Dame Karen Bradley MP, Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, and Andy Slaughter MP, Chair of the Justice Committee. Following the debate, the House will vote on whether to approve the Main Estimate for the spending of the Ministry of Justice and Home Office 2026/27.

Analysis of the Main Estimates is set out in the Library briefing Main Estimates data: Government spending plans for 2026/27. Explanatory Estimates Memoranda are available on the websites of the Justice Committee and the Home Affairs Committee.

One of Parliament’s longest standing functions is the consideration and authorisation of the government’s spending plans, requiring the government to obtain parliamentary consent before spending public money. Estimates, sometimes known as Supply Estimates, are the documents presented to Parliament setting out the government’s plans for spending for a given year. The process of obtaining Parliamentary approval to those plans is known as Supply. With a few specific exceptions, the government is required to obtain authority from Parliament through the supply process before it can spend public money.

For more information about the Estimates cycle, see the Library briefing Main Estimates: Government spending plans for 2026/27

Separate Estimates and Votes on Account are produced for each government department and published together by HM Treasury in a single volume. The key components of each Estimate are spending limits and ambits, which in each case apply to a single department for a single year only.

Within each Estimate, spending is divided into four distinct budgetary limits for each department, covering spending of a specific type determined by HM Treasury. Changes to the categorisation of spending require prior consultation with Parliament.

Switches of funding are not normally permitted by the Treasury from capital to resource (although exceptions, such as for health, are sometimes made), or from AME to DEL. Once Parliament has voted the limits, savings on any voted limit (DEL or AME) are not permitted to be used in support of spending under another.

The ambit is the description of what the spending within each of the limits will be spent upon. Government departments must ensure that their ambits are accurate and, subsequently, that no spending falls outside their scope. Should it do so, it would constitute an ‘excess vote’: illegal spending outside the authority authorised by Parliament.

Further detail of spending plans – breaking them down into a number of lines, known as subheads, within the totals above – is given within each Main and Supplementary Estimate. These breakdowns represent the government’s best estimation of planned spending within the totals at the time the Estimates are prepared, but do not constitute limits within the totals. Government departments are free to switch resources from one subhead to another, providing they do not exceed the overall spending limits, or incur expenditure beyond the scope of the ambit.