Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Food Supplies. – in the House of Commons at on 17 December 1941.
Sir Henry Morris-Jones
, Denbigh
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to cases recently before the courts of convictions for illicit drinking, gambling, purveying spurious substitutes for articles of consumption, both food and drink, and racketeering by cornering vital commodities; that many of those convicted had non-British names; that a proportion were of military age; and whether he will introduce legislation imposing much more drastic penalties for these offences?
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.