Strategic Defence Initiative

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:31 pm on 9 December 1985.

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Photo of Mr Michael Heseltine Mr Michael Heseltine The Secretary of State for Defence 3:31, 9 December 1985

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. We wanted to achieve an overall memorandum of understanding about intellectual property rights because inevitably, large numbers of companies, research organisations and universities will come to the Government to ask for guidance about the sort of contracts into which they can enter. We shall not make available the memorandum of understanding, but we shall now be able to give the clearest answers to questions about the legitimate protection of intellectual property rights on both sides of the Atlantic. I support what my hon. Friend said about research in the Soviet Union. I have made available to the House a copy of the document that sets out broadly the lines of the research programme that the Soviet Union has been pursuing for some time.