TNAG-0212-FCO40-248-Departmental-briefs-on-Hong-Kong-1970 — Page 42

Reference...................................................

Blain Commonwealth Co-ordination Department.

32

House of Lords Debate on Tependent Territories.

We have noted that in the passage on Budgetary Aid there is no reference to the primacy of the "reasonable needs" of Dependent Territories among calls on UK Aid resources. We think that it would be appropriate on a cccasion of this kind to repeat the formula.

2.

We think that in the final sentence of the "concluding remarks" the draft is breaking new ground. With the exception of theBahamas, British Honduras and Hong Kong most of the colonial residuum is made up of "very small territories" on one definition or another. A statement on the lines of the last sentence of the draft might make it difficult to get a territory to think of other alternatives to the dependency that might be open to it, e.g., possibly, the Seychelles.

Mucyou beli

(Andrew Mc M. Webster) West Indian Department, 3 December, 1970.

Copied to:

Miss B.J. Emery (PICD)

Mr. Wade-Gery (FPAD)

Mr. Glason (OPA)

Mr. Cocks (9.& SAD)

Mr. Caminara (HKD)

Mr. Donald (Personnel Policy)

Mr. Scanlon (DASU)