Date:
Time:
Reporter:
1.10.86.
PMO/1
1 THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR THE HOME OFFICE MEETS THE PRESS.
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MR ?
26.9.86.
Well, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, 4 we are very pleased today to have with us the Minister of State at
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the Home Office, Mr David Waddington. He will be making a very
short statement and then be opening himself to questions. I just
want to say that unfortunately the Minister will be unable to give individual interviews afterwards because of limitations of time.
MINISTER: Thank you very much. I would first of all like to say, ladies and gentlemen, how much my wife and myself appreciate the hospitality that we have received during our stay in Hong Kong and I can say how easy it must be to fall in love with 14 Hong Kong. We came along, not in order to make some great
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declaration of UK policy; we didn't come along in order to lecture, for goodness sake that was certainly not our purpose and we certainly had no right to do so. We came along purely to try and inform ourselves better about the issues with which we are closely concerned. Now, I think everybody in this room knows what those issues are. I have a responsibility in the Home Office for immigration and for refugee policy. I also was concerned with taking through the House of Commons the Hong Kong Nationality Order and therefore was anxious to hear views of people here in Hong Kong about nationality matters, about the new BNO passport and the rest of it. That's why I came and I will go away a happy man for having received such marvellous hospitality and help in Hong Kong and a wiser man, I think, because we have learnt a lot. Your questions please.
MR
? Can you tell us what you have learned ?
MINISTER:
too
First of all, I only had a very vague idea
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as to how the camps policy worked. I have seen pictures, of course, of living conditions in the closed camps and in the open camps, but 34 it is very difficult if you haven't actually seen these things, to
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fully appreciate what they are like and how those who are responsible for administering the policy are getting on. Now, I can tell you
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