XN000022-1996-12-05 — Page 9

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Miss Margaret Ng: A little more assurance in that case. Leaving the Chinese Government aside and I quite understand the Governor's frustration but concentrating just on the Hong Kong Government and the British Administration in Hong Kong, at the time when people applied for British Nationality under the BNSS there were certain documents submitted to the Hong Kong Government. Now may I ask the Governor to inform this Council what happened to those documents, those applications, information contained anywhere within the government files in Hong Kong or in London about the names and the particulars of people who have applied and subsequently people who had obtained the British Nationality?

Governor: That is an extremely important point and I would not wish to mislead the Legislative Council in any respect in giving a comprehensive answer. So what I will do, I will give the Honourable lady a brief answer of what I understand the position to be and then I will make clear that we give this Council a statement on exactly what the position is, where exactly all the information is, and what is happening to the information.

As I understand it, the Immigration Department at present have some of this information; it is being sent back through the British Consulate-General to the UK and when the British Consulate-General take over all their responsibilities in relation to passport issues at the beginning of next year they will have all the information with them. But I do not want there to be any possibility of misleading the Council so that is a qualified and conditional answer and I will write to the Honourable lady and make sure the letter is published giving exactly what that information is.

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We are not unaware not least because of statements like that - of the sensitivity of this information and those documents and I want to assure everybody in Hong Kong that we will do everything humanly, technologically possible to keep that material secure and to keep that material confidential. The Honourable lady will know that it would be illegal for us to make information acquired under the BNS Scheme public.

Mr Bruce Liu (in Chinese): Mr President, I agree with the international law that dual nationals should not get full consular protection. Mr Governor, concerning Hong Kong people who applied for the BNS, most of them are trying to get political insurance. The insurance coverage should have covered British nationality, British consular protection. However, for those who have taken out such political insurance, all of a sudden discover today that concerning the British consular protection there is one rider in the insurance policy, that is if they have dual nationality then they will be regarded as exceptional cases. So now they have discovered this and this is my question for you Mr Governor.

Will the UK Government and/or the Hong Kong Government with regard to these policy holders of political insurance and who have been misled, will compensation be made to them? Say a refund, or compensation in other forms?