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Question: Would Governor Patten....passports for Hong Kong people.... Do you have any good reason....

Mr Rifkind: I believe that on the question of passports this is an issue which has been very fully considered by the United Kingdom Parliament. That is something which is well understood and we are very conscious of the sensitivity of the issue. Thank you very much indeed.

End

Transcript of Secretary of State's LegCo Q&A session

Following is the transcript of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the Rt Hon Malcolm Rifkind's question-and-answer session in the Legislative Council today (Monday):

Dr Leong Che-hung: Welcome you and your team to Hong Kong and in particular thank you for spending time with members of the Legislative Council. We understand that you are on your way to Beijing and as you probably know we only have about 18 months to go before the transfer of sovereignty and yet there are many areas between Hong Kong, Britain and China, which are not quite dealt with yet and we thought this would be a good opportunity to be able to share our thoughts and clarify things with you and therefore we bear a lot of importance to your visit this time. On the basis of the fact that you have a very busy schedule, we thought that because we have such a long list of topics we would like to discuss with you, I would like you to extend, if possible, a little bit longer time for us and I'm very glad to say and inform members that the Foreign Secretary has agreed to play it by car, and extend a little bit of his time with us.

Now as we have already forwarded a list of topics for you to discuss with us, and yet we know that you have a sort of statement you would like to make to us - - -

Mr Rifkind: Very brief.

Dr Leong Che-hung: --- and to the people of Hong Kong, perhaps without wasting time could I just pass over to you to make your statement before members start asking questions on their topics.