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PARLIAMENTARY QUESTION
for WRITTEN answer cn.1.August 1978
HK+GD
The draft reply should reach the Parliamentary Unit through your Under-Secretary by NOON ON WEDNESDAY
2 AUGUST 1978.
Mr John Lee (Birmingham, Handsworth): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will stipulate the latest dates by which the remaining British dependent territories will have become independent so as to facilitate the most orderly handover and to enable those persons likely to constitute the successive governments of certain of these territories to make contingency plans for any post-independence regional federations where this is desired.
Ma Eve heard
It is not possible to stipulate dates for the independence of the remaining British dependent Territories, apart from Tuvalu which
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will become independent on October 1978, because the majority of the territories have not indicated a wish to move towards
assist independence. It is our policy to promote the independence of
our dependent territories in accordance with the wishes of the
inhabitants but not to force independence on those Territories
which for reasons of their own do not seek it.
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Goronharts