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The situation is simply this. Ever since 1989, we have argued that a British passport in the hands of a British citizen in Hong Kong should be more than a travel document. It should entitle the person possessing it to the right of abode in the United Kingdom as well as the right to travel, not thinking that three million are about to descend on the United Kingdom, any more than the three million or so who have the right to come and live here from the European Union are likely to do so!
I hate to sound as though people are picky, but in the last four years, the figures for Hong Kong emigration go like this: 140,000 have gone to live in Canada, a lot of them in what is now called Hongcouver! 70,000 have gone to live in the United States; about 55,000 in Australia; 17,000 in New Zealand; 5,000 have come to live in the United Kingdom. For one reason or another, the United Kingdom has not been the favoured destination!
The Canadian Commissioner for Hong Kong said to me the other day, looking at the spectacular increase in Canadian exports to Hong Kong, 'you see what you are missing"!
I only make those points because they illustrate an underlying argument, that the point about passports which my predecessor, Lord Wilson, made and which I made as well, is basically one about the moral responsibility which we should feel as a community for Hong Kong, rather than being a practical question of immigration policy. But, I think we are well enough informed in Hong Kong to realise that this is unlikely to feature on the agenda of any of the political parties, unlikely to feature in their manifestos for the next election.
But there are a number of related issues which we will continue to argue very vigorously. For example, the position of that of the ethnic minority in Hong Kong, about 7,000 of South Asian extraction, who will be left in 1997, some of them with no place where they have right of abode, and we will also be putting the case for visa-free access for people of Hong Kong not only to Britain but elsewhere too. There are a number of related passport and nationality issues.
Going back to your question, I have been on Any Questions about 20 times over the years. Once or twice I have made a splash by saying something which it turned out after I said it was not actually the Government's policy! This is the first time I have ever made a splash by saying something which has been the Government's policy for six years!
End/Monday, October 23, 1995
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