§ 39. Mr. Walkdenasked the Secretary of State for War why Poles now resident in the resettlement camps in this country are still being supplied with full Army rations, as this is preferential treatment as compared with ordinary British civilians.
§ Mr. BellengerThe Polish Resettlement Corps is part of the British Army, and its active members therefore receive rations at the scale appropriate to the British 182 Army. For administrative reasons it has not hitherto been found possible to issue a different scale of rations to those members of the Resettlement Corps who have been relegated to the Reserve, and who are still necessarily accommodated in Resettlement Corps camps. These men are fed in the same mess and from the same cookhouse. Families of the Poles, who mess under separate arrangements, draw a special scale of rations in which the amounts of nationally rationed foods are limited to the quantities included in the normal British civilian scale. I am, however, looking into the whole question.
§ Mr. WalkdenCan my right hon. Friend tell the House why a Polish ex-Serviceman now training for Britain's industrial army should be treated differently from a British ex-Serviceman in the same category?
§ Mr. BellengerI have done my best to answer the point which my hon. Friend put in his Question, but I will certainly look into the matter in more detail.
§ Mr. WalkdenThank you very much.