Sir J Freeland, Legal Adviser
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Al Faland Wh Legible
Cr 2 Legislative Programme 1984/85: Foreign Compensation Bill
The Secretary of State has seen your minute of 27 July and agrees that it is right to remove this Bill from the legislative programme.
He considers however that we should not put this tö the Lord President formally just yet. As a result of his recent visit to Peking and Hong Kong, the prospects for a successful agreement with the Chinese over Hong Kong have now improved. If an agreement is signed in December, we shall need to proceed to ratification fairly soon. The Secretary of State's present view, based on advice from Mr Burrows, is that it should be possible to enact, a short Bill providing for the divestment of sovereignty by July 1985 (any later is likely to lead to problems with the Chinese). The Secretary of State would therefore prefer to keep the withdrawal of the Foreign Compensation Bill up our sleeve for the time being, so as to keep open the option of proposing that we should put in its place a Hong Kong divestment Bill.
Ricketts
2 August, 1984
cc: PS/Lady Young PS/Mr Rifkind PS/Mr. Luce PS/Mr Whitney PS/PUS
Mr Darwin
Mrs Denza
Mr Broomfield, Soviet Dept
Mr Kerr, Finance Dept
Mr Burrows
Mr Hum, HKD
(P F Ricketts)