Gov.-Gen. Adrienne Clarkson has seen her annual budget chopped by $417,000 by a Commons committee.

But considering that her annual budget is $19 million, she should be able to live with the loss, says New Democrat MP Pat Martin.

"It's not too much to ask for the Governor General to have to switch brands of caviar and find a more efficient way of running Rideau Hall,'' said Martin, the NDP vice-chair of the committee.

The budget cut was decided by the Government Operations and Estimates Committee -- a new vehicle in Parliament.

The committee has been highly critical of Clarkson's spending, which has jumped to $19 million from about $11 million when she took office in 1999.

The only way the Liberal minority government can restore the lost half-million dollars is through a full vote of Parliament.

The new Commons committee also decided thursday to cut $121,000 from the budget of the Privy Council Office.

The amount was chosen because that was the figure spent on public relations firms to deal with the fallout over the sponsorship scandal.

"Where do they get off spending public money on purely partisan issues?'' said Martin.

"They were spending public money on very partisan private concerns on behalf of the Liberal party. We clipped their budget by that dollar figure and we think it's very fitting.''