§ Q7. Mr. Ian Lloydasked the Prime Minister whether the proposal made to him by Mr. Kosygin to co-ordinate British and Russian economic planning has been discussed during any of his recent visits to the capitals of the Common Market countries.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. The hon. Gentleman has not yet had the Prime Minister's answer.
§ The Prime MinisterNo, Sir, but the Governments concerned were informed about it.
§ Mr. LloydWill the Prime Minister, who must be well aware of how many of the major premises of the philosophy of economic omniscience have been discredited in the Soviet Union and this country, indicate how he will deal with a possible conflict of priorities between the co-ordination with the Gosplan and the co-ordination which must be required in the near future with the Common Market Commission in Brussels?
§ The Prime MinisterWith regard to that spontaneous supplementary question—the hon. Gentleman got off the mark a bit early—while I do not accept the centre part of his spontaneous thinking, naturally the point raised in the latter part of the supplementary question has been considered. The hon. Gentleman can be assured that, while our Common Market friends were fully informed about my talks with Mr. Kosygin, it was not a matter which they thought fit to raise as raising any difficulty about our decision in connection with the Common Market. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, France, Italy and West Germany have themselves got very extensive, lengthy and far-ranging trade agreements with the Soviet Union, and these do not seem to be incompatible with membership of the E.E.C.