§ 42. Captain Cunningham-Reidasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury how many Ministries have Press, publicity and public relations departments; and what is the total Press staff employed for this purpose?
§ Captain CrookshankThere are 25 departments employing staff on Press, publicity and public relations work, and the total number of staff employed on all 1252 three types of work, excluding the Ministry of Information but including the Service Departments, was approximately 280 at 1st April, 1941.
§ Captain Cunningham-ReidIn view of the fact that this very large number of officials are used in boosting their own departments, does not the Financial Secretary consider that during war-time this is an unnecessary extravagance?
§ Captain CrookshankNo, Sir. This is not an unduly large number of officials for the purposes required. Their work consists very largely in keeping in touch with the general public.