Of the 3.2 million Hong Kong born BDTCS, the majority are over 18 years of age as follows
Under 18
over 18
-
1.35 million
1.85 million
42.3%
57.7%
A breakdown by age-group is as follows -
Age
NO.
under 9
757,257
23.64
10-19
760,952
23.76
(a) 10-17 (598,577)
(18.69)
(b) 18-19 (162,375)
(5.07)
20-29
901,732
28.15
30-39
496,628
15.50
40-49
116,325
3.63
50-59
92,128
2.88
60 or above
78,143
2.44
(Total)
3,203,165
100
I hope this information will be useful to you in assessing HMG's "moral obligation", as you put it, to the target beneficiaries of the Package announced. It shows that they are not recent immigrants from China. An overwhelming majority of them were born and brought up under the British rein.
You also asked about which control figure, i.e. 50,000 households or 225,000 people, should be used in legislation if it was necessary to have such a figure enshrined in law. My view remains that the household figure of 50,000 is unnecessarily rigid for the operation of the package both for the Home Secretary and the Hong Kong Government. Furthermore it gives a significantly less degree of certainty on Britain's immigration liability arising from the Package than the other control figure of 225,000 passports. In any case it would be difficult to reconcile the two control figures with statistics available in Hong Kong. If necessary, sufficient safeguards can be built into the approved procedure to ensure that the 225,000 passport figure would never be breached. If you want to have a further discussion with me on this topic, I shall be happy to do so while I am in London next week. Mr. K. C. Kwong or MI. Yaxley of our London office (Tel: 01-499-9821) will know my Programme and meetings in London.