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Parliament should have a continuing say over the release of
passports
The suggestion put forward by the Rt Hon Member for Henley is just
not practicable in the circumstances of Hong Kong.
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Key personnel would not be prepared to wait around for years for
the assurance they seek. They would simply emigrate in even larger numbers to countries competing for their expertise, thus undermining
the whole objective of our scheme.
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It would also be an administrative nightmare. If such a scheme
were to be administered fairly, there would have to be a fresh round
of applications for each batch of passports, to give a chance to
those who might have become eligible since the previous batch.