CONFIDENTIAL
-4-
sarakande a ako Tamaris Tabata sa Petter Mattaa
Future Action
8. The Governor is seeing the Home Secretary and Mr Raison on
11 March. Early meeting between Lord Carrington and Home Secretary
necessary to discuss what to do about Hong Kong and Nationality Bill.
It will help Governor considerably if he is given notice of outcome
of these discussions before Lord Carrington's arrival in Hong Kong.
HMG's Commitment to Hong Kong
9, The Home Secretary is most unlikely to agree to anything more
than paragraph 6 above and may not even go that far. But whatever
is agreed, it will help very considerably if Ministers use every
opportunity to reaffirm HMG's commitment to Hong Kong.
Common Format Passports
10.
Unofficials are anxious that their new passports should look
as similar to those of British Citizens as possible. Until
recently, this appeared to present no problem for some time ahead.
However, probable announcement in March on agreement on an EC
Common format passport will be treated with the gravest suspicion
in Hong Kong. It is important that the Governor be alerted to
this development and be given plenty of time to convince Unofficials
that it is quite unrelated to the Nationality Bill.
Hong Kong and General Department
6 March 1981
CONFIDENTIAL