HC Deb 14 April 1943 vol 388 cc1183-4
2. Mr. Molson

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make a statement on the incorporation into the Foreign Office of the Foreign Research and Press Service of the Royal Institute of International Affairs?

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Eden)

At the beginning of the war the Royal Institute of International Affairs placed at the disposal of the Foreign Office their extensive reference library and certain members of their permanent staff. This was the nucleus of the Foreign Research and Press Service, which has been located at Balliol College, Oxford, and has served the Foreign Office and other Government Departments in following the foreign Press and in providing memoranda and notes covering the whole range of international affairs. The cost has hitherto been borne by the Royal Institute of International Affairs, assisted by a grant-in-aid from His Majesty's Government and by help in the form of personnel lent by the University of Oxford and certain Oxford colleges. This research and reference work has been highly valued, and I have judged it advisable to associate this organisation still more closely with my Department by transferring the administrative control and the entire cost from the Royal Institute of International Affairs to the Foreign Office and by removing the organisation to London, where it will henceforth be known as the Foreign Office Research Department. I am making available in the Library of the House the correspondence which has passed between the Chairman of the Council of the Royal Institute of International Affairs and myself on this subject.

Mr. Molson

Was the purpose of this transfer to do away with a certain amount of overlapping that previously occurred between this department in Oxford and a branch of the Foreign Office?

Mr. Eden

Yes, I felt the work was so important that it was more convenient to have this department here, and I am satisfied that there will be a saving in personnel and in expense as a result of the change.

Mr. George Griffiths

Can any Member of the House have these speakers' notes on application?

Mr. Eden

I do not think they are quite speakers' notes.

Mr. Quintin Hogg

Will the right hon. Gentleman restore the Royal Institute of International Affairs to its complete independence when the emergency comes to an end?

Mr. Eden

That independence is complete and unimpaired now. It is only a matter of the use we are making of some staff which they have lent to us.