SECRET
We
7. We believe that the second of these options (6(b)) would not
enable us to ratify the agreement, because there would be a danger
of Parliament not granting approval of the order in council.
therefore favour the third option (6(c)) which would leave a trigger
mechanism
in
our hands in the form of the order in council which
would not be brought into force until 1997. Although this would be
of little practical use, because if we did not bring the order into
force there is little doubt that the Chinese would seek to resume
sovereignty over Hong Kong anyway, it would have presentational
advantages in the case of legislating for an event so far in the
future. For this reason we would prefer option 6(c) to the
alternative of 6(a).
PASSAGE OF THE BILL
8.
Parliament will have been given an opportunity to debate the agreement in December, and we would not therefore anticipate any
great difficulties in the bill's passage through Parliament.
This
issue is however a sensitive one and it is not possible to rule out
controversy altogether.
CONCLUSION
Land.
1
9. We therefore propose to prepare a short bill dealing with the termination of sovereignty and the transfer of the Crown's rights on
The bill will take the form of an act of Parliament enabling
an order in council. If the committee agrees the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs will seek authority to give
instructions to Parliamentary Counsel for such a bill immediately after the initialling of the agreement.
SECRET
CODE 18-77