HL Deb 28 April 1983 vol 441 cc1137-8WA
Lord Houghton of Sowerby

asked Her Majesty's Government:

What emphasis is being put in broadcasts to the USSR upon the apparent contradiction between Soviet propaganda against the USA alongside the dependence of the Russian people upon imports of grain from America amounting to one-tenth of their total needs.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Belstead)

The content of the BBC External Services' programmes is a matter for the BBC. These programmes have frequently drawn attention to Soviet propaganda against the United States and have also covered the question of United States' grain exports to the USSR. For the past two years the USSR has not published figures of its domestic grain harvest and it is not therefore possible to calculate its precise dependence on United States' grain.