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5.
If it were agreed that the motion should be one of approval, a possible form of words would be:
intention
"That this House, having considered the views of the people of Hong Kong as set out in the reports laid before it, approves Her Majesty's Government's [decision of principle] to sign the agreement on the future of Hong Kong negotiated with the
Chinese Government".
Mr McLean told me that he believes that the outcome of the debate
will have an effect on the way the
on the way the legislation goes when it is put to Parliament next year, in that the more resounding the approval given by the House for the draft agreement, the easier the
subsequent passage of the legislation will be. He has in mind particularly the question of whether or not the Hong Kong Bill should be taken on the floor of the House, as is normal for a "constitutional" bill, or in committee. Naturally the Whips would tend to prefer the latter course, since it would take up less
parliamentary time in the whole House. On the other hand, to take the Bill in committee might take up more total time than if it were taken on the floor of the House, and there could therefore be some advantage from our point of view in taking it on the floor.
5.
We also need to consider what briefing of MPs we should do at the time of the publication of the assessment report.
I have
discussed this with Mr Luce who thinks that at present there is not much need to do further briefing on Hong Kong, since most MPs seem to be firmly on board. We agreed however that there would be advantage at the time of the report in making sure that copies go as early as possible to a large number of MPs known to have an interest, much as we did with the agreement itself. There might also be a case for Ministerial briefing of selected MPs. The Secretary of State may himself wish to brief opposition leaders.
6. Finally Mr McLean suggested to me that there would be some value in a meeting between the Secretary of State and the Acting Chief Whip in a week or to discuss these issues, with officials
present. I was non-committal, but promised to record the idea, and
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