§ 46. Colonel Ponsonbyasked the Prime Minister whether he will give instructions for the publication, at such time as he may think desirable, of a supplement to Cmd. 6564, Statistics Relating to the War Effort of the United Kingdom.
§ The Prime MinisterI propose to lay before the House shortly a White Paper giving figures showing the strengths of the Armed Forces and Auxiliary Services and the casualties sustained by them during the war. This will cover an aspect of the United Kingdom war effort details of which had to be omitted on grounds of security from the White Paper (Cmd. 1866 6564) published last year. In the interval since the publication of that White Paper individual Departments have released a large amount of information supplementing and bringing up-to-date the statistics given in it and, while I do not wish to rule out the possibility of publishing a revised version, it is perhaps doubtful whether there is a sufficient demand to justify this at the present time. I contemplate, however, that at a later date, when all the necessary material has been collected, a volume of statistics relating to the war should be published.