Mr. Rostron Duckworthasked the Minister of Economic Warfare whether he will state the British policy with regard to the importation of food into each of the countries occupied by the Germans?
§ Mr. FootThe policy of His Majesty's Government is to maintain strictly the blockade of all enemy and enemy-occupied countries. The legal and moral responsibility for feeding the territories they have overrun rests, upon the Germans themselves, and it is clear that foodstuffs imported through our blockade would directly or indirectly relieve the enemy of such responsibility. But, as my right hon. Friend informed the hon. Member for London University (Sir E. Graham-Little) on 14th October, subject to suitable conditions we have no objection to the purchase by our Allies of foodstuffs from neutral countries inside the blockade area for the relief of their peoples. For example, the House will have seen that cargoes of foodstuffs from Turkey have recently been arriving in Greece. I must, however, make it clear that these purchases must be made from the surplus products of the supplying country, and must therefore consist of goods of a type which that country does not import through our controls.