HKK 040/28
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
INCE
W.N. Hyde Esq., Home Office,
Queen Anne's Gate, London SW1H 9AT.
4 October, 1985.
194
Dew Wilfred,
PASSPORT FORMAT
You wrote to me on 24 September about the related questions of the format of passports and the issue of passports to BN (0)s in Hong Kong.
1.
2.
On the first point, I confirm that the second paragraph of your letter accurately reflects the outcome of discussions between Home Office and FCO officials regarding the proposed format of passports to be issued to British nationals who will not qualify for the common format passport (CFP) because they are not "United Kingdom nationals for European Community purposes" We shall now submit these proposals to our Ministers, and let you know the result as soon as possible.
•
3. As regards the arrangements for the issue of passports to BN (0)s in Hong Kong between 1 July 1987, when the new national status was introduced, and 1 July, 1997, when the issue of passports will fall to British consular officers, I confirm that our Legal Advisers see no legal or constitutional difficulty in the Foreign Secretary authorising the Governor of Hong Kong to act on his behalf.
4.
A Letter received from the Treasury last week suggests that in their view the financial arrangements should be rather different from those we had first envisaged. You wilL be glad to know that they have confirmed that they would see no objection to the cost of the passports themselves and Hong Kong's administrative charges for their issue being met out of the revenue from fees collected under the Consular Fees Order current at the time. They consider, however, that any surplus consular fees will have to be surrendered to the Consolidated Fund as extra receipts (CFRs). We shall
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