PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL
From: A J Langdon
273 2516
5 March 1990
Mr Walters
c.c. Ms Spencer
Mr Yates
Mr Hammond
Mr Morris Mrs Grimsey Mr Seymour Mr Page
13.9
HONG KONG : MEETING WITH THE PRIME MINISTER : 6 MARCH
We are seeing the Home Secretary at 9:30 tomorrow morning, prior to the meeting that he and the Foreign Secretary are having with the Prime Minister. This minute, prepared in the light of a useful meeting with FCO officials this afternoon, summarises the main issues that the Home Secretary will wish to explore.
The general allocation scheme
2. This is the main problem area, and the essential question is how far it should be biased towards "business people" and those "with managerial skills".
3.
The Hong Kong Government, and the Governor personally, are strongly wedded to the following two propositions:
i) that as many people as possible should have a
chance of selection for a passport, albeit only a small chance;
ii) that the selection process should be as
objective as possible, with the categories determined by emigration propensities, and selection within the categories being determined by a points system.
Even the Hong Kong authorities had to accept that some modification of this model was needed to moderate the very large numbers that would otherwise accrue at the base of the pyramid, and the Home Secretary's recent paper to OD (K) took that train of thought somewhat further by lopping off the bottom seven categories altogether. Above that cut-off line, however, the scheme recommended to OD (K) preserved the Hong Kong authorities' general approach, and we and the FCO judged that they would support it. (As yet, the Governor and the Hong Kong Government know nothing about the proposal even to lop off the bottom seven categories.)
PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL