§ Captain Bullockasked the Minister of Information if he is aware that when air transport is not available for the daily London papers to be sent to Paris no alternative sea route is arranged and the papers are often not sent; and if he will arrange for the London papers to be on sale in Paris as quickly after publication as possible.
§ Mr. E. J. WilliamsI fear it is impracticable to transfer newspapers immediately from air to sea routes, as flights are often only cancelled at the last moment. The newspapers must then be transferred from the airport to Victoria railway station, where they must await the next boat train for the cross channel service. These accumulating delays mean that newspapers will not be available for sale in Paris until about 48 hours after publication. Commercial distributors in Paris are unwilling to accept out of date newspapers. I am doing my best to ensure that British newspapers are on sale in Paris as soon as possible after publication, but bad flying weather unfortunately occasionally prevents this.