Sir Murray MacLehose GBE KCMG KCVO HONG KONG
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
2 August 1976
Dear Murray,
THE PLANNING PAPER
1.
You will by now have received a short despatch enclosing a copy of the final version of the Planning Paper as approved by Ministers. We thought that it would be sensible to round off the exercise in this way. You will have noticed that the Paper does not incorporate all the amendments suggested in your letter of 2 July to me. Although we discussed the proposed amendments during your visit, perhaps I should explain why we could not entirely accept your suggestions.
(a)
Differentiation of the Functions of the Executive and Legislative Councils
We saw the force of your argument for not seeking to return to the previous arrangement whereby there was a clear distinction between the functions of the two Councils. At the same time, we thought that there might still be advantage, in terms of more open discussion of public issues, in considering the case for working in this direction. In particular, we had in mind that the forthcoming expansion of the Legislative Council might in any case make it less practicable than at present to treat the two bodies as though they were one. It seemed to us likely that something of the present informality of the relationship between the two Councils would be lost when the Legislative Council becomes a considerably larger body than the Executive Council. Time will tell whether there is anything in this point and, in view of what you said, we watered down the eighth sentence of paragraph 30 of the main paper. Instead of advocating a differentiation of the functions of the two Councils, it now merely proposes that "serious consideration" should be given to the question. The references at the end of paragraph 3 of the summary and paragraph 23(iv)(d) of Annex C are consistent with this wording.
CONFIDENTIAL
/ (b)
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