Engagements (Hansard, 10 February 1983)

§ Q1. Mr. Skinner
asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 10 February.

§ The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher)
This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House I shall be having further meetings later today. This evening I shall be attending a reception at Buckingham Palace for the Queen's Awards to Industry.

§ Mr. Skinner
What does the Prime Minister say to people who have been made redundant, such as, for example, one of my constituents, who wrote to me yesterday saying that he had gone to the bank for a loan to set up a small business—he had been redundant for two and a half years—and he was shown the door by the bank manager? How is it that at the same time Argentina can apply for three loans from the British Government and British banks, complete with tax relief on the Prime Minister's approval—a medium-term loan, a bridging loan, and an International Monetary Fund loan? Does that not show the utter hypocrisy of this Government? Is it not an indictment of this Tory "Yosser-land" Britain?

§ The Prime Minister
I do not know the precise circumstances in which the hon. Gentlemans's constituent asked for a loan, and of course one would need to know those circumstances. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will write to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry. There is a loans guarantee scheme for small manufacturing business. That scheme was brought in by this Government, and it aids many people who want to start up on their own. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will pursue the matter with my right hon. Friend.
The loans for Argentina were arranged in conjunction with the agreement with the IMF, which enables Argentina to repay her previous debts and also to put her economy on a sound industrial basis. One does not need much imagination to realise that the alternative would be for Argentina to default. If Argentina did that, and her past debts were wiped out, having a present balance of payments, she would have far more liquid cash to buy armaments under those circumstances than if she paid her former debts.

§ Mr. Roy Jenkins
Will the Prime Minister clear up a confusion? She said on Tuesday that the only route out of unemployment was to get our inflation down to, or below, the level of Germany, among other countries. She also said that German unemployment was now increasing faster than ours. How does she reconcile those two statements?

§ The Prime Minister
If the right hon. Gentleman thinks a little further he will realise that if we are to have more jobs and compete in the wider world we musk be able to compete with efficient industries. There are efficient industries in Britain and in Germany and ours will be the more able to compete when our level of inflation is down to theirs and lower. There is no difficulty, except in the right hon. Gentleman's mind.

§ Sir William Clark
As, last year, we enjoyed a balance of payments surplus of £4,500 million, of which £2,000 million was in manufactured goods, does my right hon. Friend agree that in many parts of the economy we are extremely competitive and that British exporters should be congratulated on their achievements in a world recession? Is that not further proof that the Government's economic strategy is being rewarded?

§ The Prime Minister
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The balance of payments surplus was excellent last year and was £1 billion higher than forecast. Quite apart from oil, the volume of manufactured exports held up well despite a declining world trade. The performance of manufactured exports was very good indeed.

§ Mr. Foot
May I ask the right hon. Lady about her talks with Vice-President Bush? Labour Members are strongly opposed to the deployment of SS20s and to the deployment of cruise and Pershing missiles in western Europe. We would be eager, as we have mentioned before, to have a debate on the subject. Did the right hon. Lady discuss with the Vice-President any possibility other than the zero option as defined by him? Is she aware that there ate other proposals from the other side of the Atlantic which might have a better chance of bringing about successful negotiations? Did the right hon. Lady reopen the question of the dual key and seek to rectify the agreement that her Government apparently made on this subject in December 1979?

§ The Prime Minister
I note that the right hon. Gentleman is against the deployment of SS20s, but the fact is that they are deployed, have been deployed for six years, and that deployment has increased over that period. If they are taken down there will be no need to deploy cruise and Pershing missiles. Therefore, I take it that the right hon. Gentleman's first objective is the zero option, which was approved by President Reagan, because that is the way to prevent the deployment of cruise and Pershing missiles.
The Vice-President made it perfectly clear in his speech, and in conversations and speeches elsewhere, that the zero option is not a take-it-or-leave-it option. It is, of course, our goal and we must keep to that goal, because undoubtedly it would be the best possible result for those who believe in safeguarding our way of life, but who, at the same time, want to reduce the amount spent on nuclear and other weapons. Therefore, there are other possibilities as well as the zero option.
With regard to the dual key, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, the present arrangement is for a joint decision, and that means exactly what it says.

§ Mr. Foot
Did the right hon. Lady discuss with the Vice-President the proposals that have been made by Mr. Paul Warnke, the previous negotiator on behalf of the United States at the SALT 2 talks—proposals that many would think had a better chance of resulting in negotiations? Did she discuss that at all, because that would be a real alternative, a real flexible response?
Will the right hon. Lady confirm the reply that the Foreign Secretary gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) in December when he asked the Foreign Secretary to assure the House that if the missiles were ever placed in Great Britain they would be subject to the same dual control arrangements of earlier American nuclear weapons based in Great Britain? At that time the Foreign Secretary said that he could not give that assurance. Is that the same situation now, and, if so, does it mean that once again the right hon. Lady has not properly sought a new arrangement to deal with these missiles?

§ The Prime Minister
Missiles must be stationed somewhere and the arrangements that we have are those that were approved in the days of Attlee, Truman and Churchill. They are the arrangements that have been agreed by all Governments, which have been honoured and which are identical to a joint decision.

§ Mr. Foot
Does the right hon. Lady's reply mean that she is confirming the answer that the Foreign Secretary gave on this matter just before Christmas?

§ The Prime Minister
No. My reply means what I said—that the present arrangements are for joint decision on the use of American bases, which were started in the days of Attlee, Truman and Churchill.