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Miss Christine Loh: I think precisely on this issue of rights of residency, are you able to give us any indication at all as to when we might have further news and when we do have some further news, is it likely to be fairly substantial in terms of explaining the various positions and expanding upon Article 24 of the Basic Law?

Governor: I hope that recent discussions between experts will enable us reasonably soon to make the sort of comprehensive announcement that the honourable lady quite rightly says is required. All of us know, I know from my visit earlier this year to Canada, the Chief Secretary knows from her recent visit to Australia, that these are questions which greatly concern people from Hong Kong who are now living elsewhere but they're also questions which concern people who are living in Hong Kong and people are jumping to conclusions about what is going to be required of them, which aren't always I think justified. So the sooner we can have a comprehensive announcement the better and I'm sure that's a point which is put to Chinese officials by members of the preparatory committee.

End

Governor in RTHK's phone-in programme

The following is the transcript of the RTHK's phone-in programme in which the Governor, the Rt Hon Christopher Patten, took part this (Thursday) morning:

Presenter: Before we take our first question, Mr Patten, the NCNA has been predictably critical of your speech so could I ask you that if you still have some hope that China will abandon its plans for a provisional legislature, why you would take such an aggressive approach? Surely, by annoying China you just make it even less likely that they will change their minds.

Governor: What I did was to repeat clearly and firmly but I don't think provocatively, exactly what British Ministers have said to Chinese officials and exactly what Malcolm Rifkind was saying recently, both when he met his opposite number in the spring in the Hague and what he said more recently at the UN General Assembly. There are two particular issues, one is that we think that it is a bad idea to dismantle this Legislative Council; secondly we think it would be an extremely bad idea and divisive and confusing to set up an alternative Legislative Council as it were, before June 30 next year. Now we are not going to shift from those positions. It's not the British Government or the Hong Kong Government which is being provocative, it is those who are proposing a provisional legislature before next June which is totally unnecessary, a point that the Chief Secretary made to Director Lu when she was in Peking a few months ago.