in
State Sor the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, referred
to a question from Lord Mackehos about "providing a home
and srity for some of those who have served us well in
Hong Kong and who might feel at risk". She said:
"I can assure the House that the Government have this
point very much in mind. In certain limited cases
certain rights of admission will exist at the discretion
of the Home Secretary in the United Kingdom.
They will
a very limited basis for people who were exposed to
special considerations and special factors".
Your leader also made several factual errors in
discussing constitutional development in Hong Kong. The
relevant facts are these. In July 1984 the Hong Kong
Government published a Green Paper to launch public
consultation on the development of representative
government. A Hong Kong Government White Paper published
in November 1984 summed up this exercise. It described
feeling in the community on the key issue of direct
elections to the Legislative Council as "strong public
support for the idea.
but little support for such
elections in the immediate future". The only undertaking
it gave in this connection was that the issue would be
further considered in another review in 1987.
That undertaking was carried out. The review held in
1987 showed that while public opinion was strongly in
introducing
favour of withdrawing a directly elected element into the
Legislative Council views on the timing of this move were