Mr Murray Parliamentary Unit
24%
CONFIDENTIAL
HONG KONG: PQ BY MR ROBERT PARRY
HAKK 212/1
RAZNED IN B
30 JAN
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1. I submit a draft reply and background note to the priority Written Question put down by Mr Robert Parry MP (Labour Scotland Exchange) for answer on 25 January.
• 2.
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FOR Ref.
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128
3
(15)
NO. ST
Liverpool,
Mr Parry takes a keen and critical interest in Hong Kong affairs: in 1977 he put down 94 PQs about the Colony, on a wide range of subjects, including three Questions about the study by Professor Turner into labour relations in Hong Kong. Mr Parry also has an Oral Question down for reply on 25 January about the Turner Report. The present Question was probably stimulated by articles that appeared in the Hong Kong press on 17 and 18 January about the interim report that Professor Turner submitted at the beginning of 1977. Although copies of this report were handed to both the TUC and the CBI on a confidential basis, it has not been
made public.
3. In view of the specifically interim and provisional nature of this report (Professor Turner has himself described it as a
On the "first draft") little would be gained by its publication. other hand, it would be all too easy for readers to draw mistaken conclusions from Professor Turner's tentative suggestions.
4. I, therefore, recommend that the Secretary of State should decline to make the report public and have submitted accordingly.
5. The OLA concurs.
24 January 1978
Cc:
PS/Lord Goronwy-Roberts
OLA
@. B. Stent.
JA B Stewart
Hong Kong & General Dept
CONFIDENTIAL
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