CONFLI
CONFIDENTIAL
iii) We know that our views differ on the question of whether resistance to the plan of action can be expected from your Officials and Unofficials. In the interests of presenting
✔
an agreed Paper to the Secretary of State, we were prepared to delete the references to this; and we have noted that since the Paper was drafted a number of senior Unofficials (e.g. Y K Kan) have come out in favour of some of its aspects, e.g. widening the social basis of LegCo and improving labour legislation. But in drafting the Paper we had to take account of the fact that resistance has been encountered over a long period of time, e.g. from Unofficials in the field of labour-legislation; and from Officials-in the fiscal field (examples in the Steering Brief). Our intention in referring to this in the original Planning Paper was similar to that in referring to the limitations on directly, legislating for the Colony or on seeking to use the Governor's powers to override his Unofficials. We do not have
carte blanche in Hong Kong and we wished to stress that our policy must avoid the risks of, a constitutional, confrontation.
•
iv) We also do not accept that the Planning Paper was based on serious misconceptions, or factual errors. Since the time
the Paper was written there have been adjustments to Hong Kong's plans for the future (eig. the introduction of paid annual leave, etc. and the reacceleration of the housing programme put back by the recession). Nor did it contain proposals on which Hong Kong
could not deliver: the programme in the new version is
substantially unchanged from that in the original.
Method
i) On the PUS's instructions, the original aim was to produce a draft Planning Paper on the problems as seen from here and for the Governor to produce two despatches, one on external policy and one on the internal policies of the Hong Kong Government as seen from Hong Kong. The object was to enable the PUS to form a judgement on the gap which might exist between the view of the
2
CONFIDENTIAL
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.