HOME OFFICE
CONFIDENTIAL,
Lunar House Wellesley Road Croydon CR9 2BY
Telephone
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A C Galsworthy Esq CMG
Hong Kong Department
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
LONDON
SW1A 2AH
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Please reply to The Under Secretary of State Your reference
Our reference NTY/85 1/387/4
ник ото/+
Date
2 October 1985
37×
425
Dear Tony,
HONG KONG: DRAFT WHITE PAPER
42.2
M
SEE POLO (426
Home Office Ministers have now approved the draft White Paper, which has been sent to the Prime Minister and members of OD(K) for approval. I understand that the Foreign & Commonwealth Secretary has also agreed it.
We are now making arrangements for publication. We are aiming for publication on
17 October and will let you know as soon as this has been settled, so that Hong Kong can be advised in good time.
We intend to prepare a short press statement for issue on publication day. It will not need to be as detailed as Hong Kong's will undoubtedly be, given the lesser degree of interest here. We will let you have a draft for comments before we pass it to our Public Relations Branch.
The agreed draft took into account Hong Kong's final comments on the draft White Paper, the draft Order and the list at Annex 2, as set out in their Telnos 1874 and 1875 of 11 September, and 1880 of 12 September. I set out below which of these we accepted, and an explanation in the cases of those with which we disagreed.
Telno 1875 of 11 September
We take Miss Maria Tam's argument. We have amended article 4(3) accordingly, and have also made a consequential amendment to article 6(1).
Telno 1874 of 11 September: Hong Kong comments on draft White Paper: (Hong Kong paragraph lettering)
1.
A.
General
Disagree. We have set out in full the various nationality terms where they first appear in the White Paper, and see no need to repeat this on every subsequent reference.
B.
Disagree. There is no other Hong Kong Act. The full title is given in the first line of the White Paper, and is not therefore considered necessary thereafter.
C.
Agreed. We have inserted a footnote to the commentary explaining that references in the text to the masculine gender include the feminine. We have also inserted "or she" and "or her" where appropriate, except for the second sentence of paragraph 15, since section 23(1)(b) of the BNA 1981 refers only to "he" and "his".