24 MAY 189 23:46 FROM COI TECH RADIO
TRANSCRIPT I SELECT COMMITTER ON HONG KONG 24 MAY 1989
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PAGE.OJI 056
MR TEMPLE-MORRIS:
You do, quite legitimately, make the point in your
Memorandum that the Act, and this was made clear during
the passage of the Bill, says that this discretion will be
used sparingly.
How I would put it to you in the following figures
that it is being used inflexibly and indeed with undue
restriction. On your figures I think, 499 applications
have been made and only 8 accepted. We received evidence
in Hong Kong from Sir David Ford, whom we have been
delighted to have with us during these proceedings in
fact, much to the same effect. And indeed pleas have been
made for greater generosity by Hong Kong people, by their
government, to us. The Local Inspectors' Association told
us that they had made 99 applications and none of then had
been granted.
Is this not sort of extreme inflexibility?
How do
you justify this sort of restrictive approach to a
category that perhaps are the prime category that deserves
a certain generosity?
MR RENTON;
I think in
Mr Temple-Morris I am well aware of the
representations that have been made to you.
fact it is right to say that the total of the applications
received to date is 550, 59 grants have been made, 51 to