XN000022-1996-07-05 — Page 7

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Question: I appreciate that. Thank you very much for giving me this information on the number because it is something we have pursued for a long time. I did meet with Robin Cook in Hong Kong and one of the most important issues that he raised was the number and I certainly am looking forward to hearing from your office in the very near future about that exact number and the people.

Governor: Can I just add one thing about the number because it is relevant. What a lot of people worry about is that the number will become self-inflating, because they are concerned that some people who do actually have another passport, maybe an Indian passport or a Pakistani passport, will, if they get a hint of being able to get a British passport through another scheme, forget about their Indian and Pakistani passport or their passport from some other part of the world and claim that they are stateless and claim that they should qualify for a British passport as well. So there are problems about how exactly you ring-fence the number. The 8,000 that we have given is our best estimate of the figure today.

Question: I fully agree with you, thank you very much.

Question (Mr Chan): On TV, in newspapers. I have been reading about you a lot. I really admire you because now you are called a criminal down the ages by the Chinese side but yet you are still working for the welfare of Hong Kong people, you are still touring the districts and you are still getting around. But then my thinking is, well, you will be Governor still for 360 days.

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When you first came to Hong Kong you said this well, at that time I was already over 50 and I am around with the elderly people and we have been working all our lives and we are the poor sector you said that you would be enhancing the old age allowance for elderly people. At that time many elderly people really backed you up because in Hong Kong there are many elderly people who have been working very hard for all their lives. They have children, however the children also have to work from hand to mouth; they have to work for their own families and will not be able to support the elderly. And then from the newspapers I have read this well maybe because the Chinese Government said something and so it seems you have not done much in this respect.

There are so many elderly people in Hong Kong and over the decades they have contributed a lot to Hong Kong and the prosperity of Hong Kong really can be attributable to the contributions of the elderly. So I am saying this: I hope that you will do more for us in the remaining 360 days. Please do something good for the elderly people.