§ 49. Mr. Parkerasked the Minister without Portfolio what arrangements are being made as regards the Anglo-French supply organisation in this country and in the United States of America as a result of recent events in France?
§ The Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Arthur Greenwood)The chairman of the Anglo-French Co-ordinating Committee, Monsieur Monnet, who, as an Allied Officer under a joint mandate from the British and French Prime Ministers, has been at the head of the Anglo-French Supply Organisation, tendered his resignation on 3rd July. I wish to express the British Government's sense of its great debt to Monsieur Monnet for his services to this country as well as to France in regard to the general work of the Allied supply organisation and, in particular, the joint purchase of aeroplanes and munitions in the United States of America. The Anglo-French Co-ordinating Committee and the Anglo-French Executives, which served a most useful function so long as Great Britain and France were fighting together as Allies, are now being dissolved. The Anglo-French Purchasing Board, of which Mr. Purvis, the head of the British Purchasing Commission in New York, has been chairman, is also being dissolved. The British Commission will, of course, remain under the very able direction of Mr. Purvis, to deal with the increased and increasing British purchases in the United States of America. In London a small central organisation, in place of the Anglo-French organisation which previously served the purpose, is being established to co-ordinate the demands on the British Purchasing Commission. This organisation will be in the charge of Mr. T. H. Brand and will form a focus for the central consideration of matters of general policy and for the co-ordination of major demands. Arrangements will be made to continue a suitable liaison with our Allies who have purchases to make in North America as part of the common war effort.
Under the allocation of duties between the different Members of the War Cabinet, the organisation comes within my responsibility as chairman of the Production Council; and, with the consent of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Shipping, I have asked the Parliamentary 1343 Secretary of the Ministry of Shipping to exercise a general oversight of the new organisation and to be chairman of a North American Supply Committee, composed of the interested Departments, for the consideration of general questions arising from the purchasing programmes in the United States of America and Canada. I should add that although there was no Anglo-French purchasing organisation in Canada, we have hitherto maintained a British Supply Board in Ottawa which dealt with both British and French orders. This Board is now being wound up on the completion of arrangements whereby the Canadian Department of Munitions and Supply has undertaken to receive notice of our requirements direct from the Supply Departments concerned and to arrange for the placing of these orders and the development of the productive capacity required. We welcome this valuable co-operation on the part of the Canadian Government.
§ Mr. ParkerWill this British purchasing body buy for the Allied Armies who are fighting with us?
§ Mr. GreenwoodThe intention is, now that the French are out of it, to utilise this new organisation for the purchase of all war supplies required by those Allies still fighting for us.