CONFIDENTIAL
170)
/para 3
of
Alan Paul Esq Head of HKD
FCO
Dean Alam,
-
BRITISH TRADE COMMISSION
- HKD 340/4
RECEIVED IN REGISTE'
1 5 MAY 1991
PA
HONG KONG.
1 May 1991
STEERING COMMITTEE ON BRITISH NATIONALITY SCHEME
f.i.
OLEC Miss Brooks,
Legal Adrian Fii.
بهم
Mr Morri Mr Hag
Ws Jals
1. Thank you for your helpful telegram 101 of 29 April with comments on the papers presented to the Steering Committee at its meeting on 30 April.
2. I made the point in paragraph 2 of your telegram. It was taken up, and the Chief Secretary asked the Director of Immigration to ensure that his staff, when processing applications, were alerted to the need to ensure that persons who might be vulnerable after 1997, but who had applied under a group other than the Sensitive Services Class, should also be considered for that Class. Larry Leong, the Director of Immigration, confirmed that this was already being done but said that he would underline the instructions on the point.
3. I also made the point contained in the first three sentences of/your telegram. Donald Tsang and the legal experts attending the Committee admitted, a little sheepishly I thought, that the 1 March 1991 deadline for applications for transfer from one class to another had no basis in the Law. This was picked up by the Chief Secretary, but not to the point where it was decided to remove the provision or remove the whole of paragraph 4b. Donald Tsang emphasised that there would be very few people affected by this provision. I suspect however that there may be some further examination of the point outside the meeting, even although the experts were not prepared to consider it at the time.
4.
The other papers on the agenda all went through with little comment. The discussion of the Special Services Class paper revealed that there have so far been 1,657 applicants under this class out of an allocation of 3,850. On the entrepreneurs class we were told that 61 letters of invitation to apply had been issued by the Chief Secretary, and 123 letter had gone from Donald Tsang to other potential candidates asking them to provide financial and business details. 204 individuals had applied themselves under this category. There was however some overlapping between these three groups.
The Director of Immigration also mentioned that he expected the first passports to be issued under the Scheme in June or July.
/5.
CONFIDENTIAL