§ Mr. Dalyellasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what response he has had to his statement of 14 March, Official Report, column 497 about the possible reciprocal lifting of commercial and financial restrictions by Argentina.
§ Mr. RentonThe Argentine Government have not replied to the message to which my right hon. and learned Friend referred on 14 March at column 499.
§ Mr. Dalyellasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will publish in the Official Report the letter of 28 March to the hon. Member for Linlithgow from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Renton) about references in Lord Blake's recent publication concerning Cabinet policy toward the prosecution of the Falklands war.
§ Mr. RentonYes. The full text of the letter is as follows:
Thank you for your letter of 20 March in which you follow up your intervention in the adjournment debate on 14 March.
Thank you also for enclosing the text setting out the allegation which came to Lord Blake as 'private information'. The Government's position regarding these allegations is that, without accepting that they have any validity, they are not prepared to give details of the operational advice submitted to Ministers. This, I assure you, is in accordance with normal practice.
On Argentine re-armament, there really is nothing I can usefully add to the reply I gave in my winding-up speech (Columns 528–529).
This leaves the Argentines of Scottish and Welsh extraction living in Patagonia. We are well aware that many people of British descent have freely chosen to settle in Argentina and have prospered and been content to live under the political, economic and social system of that country. But the people of the Falkland Islands have clearly expressed the wish to live on British soil in the Falkland Islands, and have no wish to become subject to Argentina. Their wishes merit respect by a country which has so recently recovered its own democratic freedom.