THE GENERAL COUNCIL OF THE BAR
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Please quote reference
16th April 1991
Peter Tibber Esq
PS/The Earl of Caithness
HKD 340/4
Foreign and Commonwealth offCEIVE
London
SW1A 2AH
Dear Mr. Tibber,
DESK
30 APR 199
Thank you for your letter of the 10th April.
AS/JH/L073
Hong Kong is
It is very good of you to bring me up-to-date. going to need the services of a strong independent Bar and they need every encouragement possible.
I expect Anthony Rogers QC, the Chairman of the Hong Kong Bar will keep me up-to-date.
your uncerely, NA
ANTHONY SCRIVENER QC Chairman
163
Mar Hague pera
22/4
intim 1974
Mamy marin
War/w 122/4
Chief Executive: John Mottram CB LVO OBE
The Rt Hon David Hunt MP
The House of Commons LONDON SW1
2 Downs Road Westbury-on-Trym Bristol BS9 3TX Telephone (0272) 621023
lofy
pa. (162)
HKD 340/4
RECEIVER IN
3 0 APR 1991
DESK OFFICER INDEX
14th March 1991
I am writing to you about the plight of Hong Kong Civil Servants who are worried about their future after 1997 and the problems they are facing with the British Nationality Selection Scheme. As you know, applications closed recently and the British Government may feel that the response to the scheme was poor, in view of the fact that under 70,000 applied.
I have just returned from Hong Kong where I met a number of my former Hong Kong Chinese Colleagues and found there are a number of problems with the scheme. As a former chairman of the Staff Side of the Hong Kong Senior Civil Service Council, I have been able to hear the views of local colleages who might be reluctant to voice their opinions to others.
The major problem is that no one applied unless they felt they had a real chance of success. Thus, there is a large number of people who would have applied and wish to benefit from the scheme but did not feel they had enough points. A large many are professionals in the Civil Service aged over 45 whose salaries tend to be below that of their colleagues who work in the private sector, some of which firms have connections with the United Kingdom. They are, of course, worried that after 1997 they will have been 'tainted' by working for the British and to apply and fail under the scheme may be seen to be further evidence of their lack of commitment to China. I consider that not enough places in the scheme have been reserved for Civil Servants who are not in the Disciplined Services. This may have been because the points system was designed by the Hong Kong Civil Service and it would be difficult to show favouritism to itself.
:
Hong Kong Civil Servants feel themselves to be in a very vulnerable position and I feel very strongly that those over 35, who will have given many years service to the British Crown, should be given special consideration. Their passports should allow them right of abode in the United Kingdom.
I am also very concerned with the position of my former colleagues who are Solicitors, Land Executives, Land Inspectors and Chartered Surveyors who work in the Buildings and Lands Department. The scheme limits applications within certain occupational groups and it would appear that these Civil Servants find themselves to be in a particularly over-subscribed group. As it seems that gaps in under-subscribed groups cannot be utilised by over-subscribed groups, the scheme will be limited to below
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1
the 50,000 envisaged by Parliament. As a Solicitor yourself I hope you feel that these people and their families are the sort we need in the United Kingdom.
I am appalled by the sacrifices many of my colleagues are already making to seek the insurance of an entry to another country, should things go wrong in Hong Kong. Colleagues have already sent their wives and children to Canada, Australia and the United States in order to get their children educated there in the hope that that will secure them a right of abode. Friends of mine have been living on their own, without their wives and children, for some time already, with the prospect that the position will continue for a number of years. "Widow Street" in Vancouver is the subject of local gossip whose content you can imagine.
On this visit I have noticed a marked decline in the standard of spoken English since I left Hong Kong in 1988 to work as a Contract Planning Inspector for the Department of the Environment. This is further evidence that those people whom we wish to retain in Hong Kong are leaving. None wish to leave as Hong Kong is their home but they do want the insurance of a passport that gives them a right of abode in another country should things go wrong. I do hope you can see this is particularly important for Civil Servants who, at the age of 35 and over, are really important to the running of Hong Kong up to, and well beyond 1997.
I am sending a copy of this letter to Michael Stern, my local Member of Parliament, but I thought that you, 85 a member of the Cabinet, should be aware, first hand, of the problems of the British Nationality Selection Scheme and its application to Hong Hong Chinese Civil Servants.
John Walton Masters
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