CONFIDENTIAL
B
4.
Following this
initial
response from the Treasury,
Finance Department had agreed to push the reasury to agree
to
A
the proposal that Hong Kong retain the full fee,
fee, as now,
for a variety of reasons, technical as well
as well as political.
detailed letter, therefore, issued from the Assistant in
Finance Department to the Treasury on 16 December 1985.
C 5. Unfortunately, the Treasury were not convinced by our arguments, maintaining the line that Hong Kong could keep
its costs but that in common with the fees for passports
is sued elsewhere under the Consular Fees Order, the
remainder must be surrendered.
6. During these deliberations
Our inclination was to bring
Hong Kong into the picture to lend their weight to the
political argument. NTD and Finance Department resisted
was purely a matter
this however on the grounds that this
for UK Government departments. With the failure of these
approaches we were on the point of seeking Hong Kong's
advice anyway on further arguments to use with the treasury
D in January when NTD produced a draft of a letter to the
Treasury pointing out
that the Treasury may have made a
fundamental error in equating passports issued in a
Dependent Territory to BDTCs (as BN(O) s will, of course
remain until 1997) with passports issued not in a Dependent
Territory, and that what we were seeking wa s merely a continuation of present arrangements in Hong Kong concerning
passports issued to BD TCs. In view of this we (HKD) agreed
to hold off bringing Hong Kong into the argument officially
until a response was received from the reasury, although we
did inform Carter of the problem when he was home for
consultations. According to Finance Department this latest
letter will issue today (20 February). We will chase the
Treasury for a reply.
CONFIDENTIAL