CONFIDENTIAL
PRETING BETWEEN THE MINISTER OF STATE AND THE GOVERNOR OF HONG KONG: 11 JANUARY 1980
Present:
Mr Blaker
Mr McLaren, FED
Mr Clift, HKGD
Mr Munro
Sir Murray MacLehose
DEMOCRATIC REFORM OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN HONG KONG
Parliamentary Pressure
1.
Mr Blaker mentioned the Early Day Motion signed by 150 MPs supporting the demands for reform of the Urban Council which had been put forward by a group of Councillors during their visit in October 1979. He was in fact more impressed by the arguments of Sir Paul Bryan and his colleagues in the Anglo-Hong Kong Parliamentary Group; they had been less
had still detected pressure for change in
extreme but
Hong Kong and believed that this could be achieved in the local government field. But it was important to avoid internal developments in Hong Kong becoming a partisan issue at West- minster. There was a genuine risk of this because of the strength of Labour feeling (more than half the parliamentary party had signed the Early Day Motion) ; Mr Rowlands, as Opposition Foreign Affairs spokesman, could not ignore this.
2.
The Governor enquired about the timing of discussion of Hong Kong by the new House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs. Mr Blaker said that Sir Anthony Royle thought that he could put off discussion for some time but we had to take account of the Committee.
Possible moves at local level
3.
Mr Blaker said that he accepted that there could be no question of elections in LEGCO but he wondered whether changes were possible in local government. Could some electoral element be introduced in the two advisory committee systems which covered many aspects of public services - the District Advisory Boards and the functional territory-wide Advisory Committees? In the latter case, would it be possible, for instance, to set up local elected school boards? He noted that in his latest speech to LEGCO the Governor had placed great emphasis on the development of the consultative process both in the New Territories and in the Urban areas where experiments were being introduced.
CONFIDENTIAL
14.