TNAG-0525-FCO40-620-Visit-of-UK-Members-of-Parliament-(Defence-and-External-Affa-1975 — Page 20

Reference.

(10)

CONFIDENTIAL

1690

Mr Jantrin

Mr O'Keeffe (on return)

DEFENCE AND EXTERNAL AFFAIRS SUB-COMMITTEE

Please see Mr Sloman's minute of 12 December, which I received this afternoon.

1.

2.

I have had only a quick look at the transcript of the evidence on Hong Kong which Mr Hawley and Mr O'Keeffe gave to the sub-committee on 9 December (pages 37 - 43 refer). I think that, technically, it is pretty accurate, though there are one or two errors here and there. I have marked those which I have spotted. Subject to Mr Sloman's advice,it could be left either to the sub-committee's Secretary to correct these errors when a final transcript is produced or we ourselves could draw them to the sub-committee's attention.

3. More important is the question of what should be sidelined. The sub-committee's Chairman made it clear that there is nowadays much less sidelining of evidence than once used to be the case. I assume therefore that we will have to keep sidelining to a minimum. The main passages for sidelining seem to be those dealing with China's attitude to the future of Hong Kong as Mr O'Keeffe is recorded as having said, that dealing with Hong Kong's contribution to the UK economy.

and

4. I should be grateful if Mr Janvrin would look into the figures which were used on both sides to indicate the possible totals of invisible earnings from Hong Kong, including and excluding the value placed on civil aviation rights. At some stage, we shall need to make good on Mr O'Keeffe's undertaking to look into the use of the terms "Colonial Secretary", "Colony" etc. (pages 40 - 41 of the transcript refer).

5. Mr Male has enquired how Mr Hawley and Mr O'Keeffe got on with the sub-committee. I have given him a general account but if time allows I think he would be interested to see the transcript together with our sidelining recommendations - before it is returned to Mr Sloman.

D.F. Millow

D F Milton

15 December 1975

Hong Kong and Indian Ocean Dept

CODE 18-77

CONFIDENTIAL