Under the current system, Parliament votes on a number of control totals in the estimates, and those control totals are largely aligned with budgetary controlled totals that the Treasury sets.
There is a total for capital expenditure and for resource expenditure. There is a subdivision total of administration costs, and there is a cash limit, called the net cash requirement. In the U.K.—and my colleagues will correct me if I'm wrong—there is a series of debates called “estimates days debates”. I think there are now three during the course of the year: one for the main estimates, and two for the supplementary estimates.
Under that process, something called the liaison committee, which is composed of the chairs of all the different select committees, chooses the estimates that they wish to debate, and they hold a debate on those. Then, typically, the remainder of the estimates are all approved, effectively kind of on the nod, without significant debate.