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Circular Home 'B' 37/79
CONFIDENTIAL
IMMEDIATE
(HICK
HIKK C20/848/1)
PERSONAL
HKG 025/1
1 C MAY 1979
No 15 R
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
17,
6 April 1979
PREPARATION OF PAPERS FOR INCOMING MINISTERS
1. Now that the Election has been fixed for 3 May, we need to prepare short position papers for submission to Ministers immediately the new Government is formed. A list of the papers required is attached, with the Departments responsible for drafting them.
2. These papers are meant to set out briefly the background to the issues which are likely to occupy the attention of Ministers in the next few months. They are not intended to make recommendations or elicit decisions: Departments will need to put forward submissions in the ordinary way if they wish to discover Ministers' views quickly on individual issues.
3. The position papers should be suitable for submission to Ministers of any political party, and they should not appear to assume that existing policy will necessarily continue unchanged. Where Conservative policies differ substantially from Labour policies, specially tailored additional briefs may be required. A note on Conservative foreign policy is attached and Planning Staff will circulate relevant extracts from the Party manifestos as soon as these are published. Planning Staff will speak directly with Departments if additional briefs seem necessary. (Copies of relevant remarks by Party spokesmen can be obtained on request from Mr McManus in Planning Staff (ext 8003)).
4.
The papers should summarise recent major developments and describe the present position; they should then set out the British interests involved, likely future developments, and the particular problems to be faced. They should contain little historical detail.
5. Drafts should be very short, preferably no more than two pages. They should be fully cleared with other FCO Departments, Assistant Under Secretaries and where necessary with Deputy Under Secretaries. In certain cases Departments may wish
to consult other Whitehall Departments but this should be done informally and not through any normal committee structure.
6. 20 coples of each paper, in final form, on white paper and typed in double spacing, should reach Mr Cary in Planning Staff by close of play onesday 18 April.
They Planning
will then be submitted to the PUS's committee of Deputy Under Secretaries. Staff will discuss directly with Departments any modifications suggested by the
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