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3. Mr Raison said that the Government hoped to take policy decisions before the summer recess and to publish a bill before or after Christmas. He would consider the points made by the Governor carefully, but the division into two categories seemed logical. Nevertheless a group of Conservative barristers had published a paper advocating a three-tier citizenship some years earlier so there was some support for that concept within the Conservative Party (it later emerged that this paper had put forward the idea of separate citizenships for each of the remaining colonies). The Governor argued that there was a lack of logic in lumping together under one portmanteau title those with connections with existing dependencies and those in limbo. Mr Woodfield said that the Green Paper proposals had been drawn up with another Uganda/Asian situation in mind. The idea had been to distance the UK from such a residual commitment. Sir M MacLehose thought that the degree of distancing would be the same whether there were two or three categories of citizen- ship. In any event, if the worst happened in Hong Kong the world would expect Britain to take people in whatever the precise legal position.
4. The Governor concluded by saying that what he was asking
was that the Government should adopt a suggestion which would help Hong Kong a great deal but would not involve any change in present restrictions on rights of entry, etc. Mr Raison repeated his willingness to consider what the Governor had said.
5. I understand that Mr Smedley has already warned Mr Luce (as the Minister responsible for immigration and nationality questions in the FCO) that the Green Paper proposals are likely to cause difficulties for the Dependent Territories. I suggest that the next stage should be a submission through Mr Luce recommending that the Secretary of State should write formally to Mr Whitelaw to put FCO views on record - an intervention at a lower level would be unlikely to be effective. The Governor has, however, undertaken to confirm his position in writing and I think it would be best to wait until he has done so before drafting (the idea of a three-tier citizenship was not included in Sir D Roberts' despatch last summer). This need not cause any undue delay: Sir M MacLehose is well aware of the urgency.
huangver
R JT McLaren
Hong Kong and General Department
15 June 1979
cc
Mr Cortazzi
Mr Figg
Mr Smedley, N&TD
CONFIDENTIAL