§ Sir A. Knoxasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will cause inquiries to be made into the case of Sergeant. No. 7604309, A. E. Greening, a prisoner of war at Stalag XXB, who, up till the end of March, had received none of the four clothing parcels sent to him by his relatives and passed the winter with inadequate clothing and who stated in his letter of the 17th March that, up till that date, only six parcels of food had been received from the Red Cross in his camp.
§ Mr. LawI am aware that the delivery from Geneva to the camps of parcels sent by next-of-kin has not been as satisfactory as the delivery of bulk assignments despatched by the British Red Cross Society, but I am informed that the position has recently shown some improvement. As regards the last part of the Question, receipts from the men's representative at Stalag XXB show that 21,700 food parcels were received in that camp between 18th January and 19th March, 1941, an average of half a parcel a man a week, and that the average rose in May to 1¼parcels a man a week. Sergeant Greening's statement that only six parcels had been received up to 17th March is therefore difficult to understand.
§ Mr. Simmondsasked the Secretary of State for War the total number of Italian prisoners now in our hands; and what number of these are native troops?
§ Captain MargessonAccording to my latest information, the number of Italian officers and other ranks now in our hands is 177,937, in addition to 66,010 native troops.