§ Q3. Mr. ButlerTo ask the Prime Minister if she has any plans to seek to pay an official visit to New Zealand.
§ The Prime MinisterI have at present no plans to visit New Zealand.
§ Mr. ButlerWill my right hon. Friend perhaps reconsider her decision? The New Zealand Government are Socialist, but they are at least following my right hon. Friend's economic policies and cutting higher taxation as well.
§ The Prime MinisterI note what my hon. Friend says. I know that New Zealand is following Thatcherite economic policies in removing exchange controls, selling shares in a number of Government-owned enterprises and reducing the burden of taxation and Government expenditure as a proportion of output. I agree with those policies. It only goes to show that the Labour party is out of step, not only with the mood of the country as a whole, but with its brothers abroad.
§ Mr. GrocottWill the Prime Minister take a lesson from the Government of New Zealand and learn that it is possible for a Western democracy to have a foreign policy which is not one of total subservience to the United States?
§ The Prime MinisterI believe that if a country relies on another country to help with its defence it should give that country's ships refuge in its harbours.