TNAG-1081-FCO40-1331-Implications-for-Hong-Kong-of-changes-in-the-British-nationa-1981 — Page 60

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CONFIDENTIAL

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Future Action

8. The Governor is seeing the Home Secretary and Mr Raison on

11 March. Early meeting between Lord Carrington and Home Secretary

necessary to discuss what to do about Hong Kong and Nationality Bill.

It will help Governor considerably if he is given notice of outcome

of these discussions before Lord Carrington's arrival in Hong Kong.

HMG's Commitment to Hong Kong

9. The Home Secretary is most unlikely to agree to anything more

than paragraph 6 above and may not ev go that far. But whatever

is agreed, it will help very considerably if Ministers use every

opportunity to reaffirm HMG's commitment to Hong Kong.

Common Format Passports

10. Unofficials are anxious that their new passports should look

as similar to those of British Citizens as possible. Until

recently, this appeared to present no problem for some time ahead.

However, probable announcement in March on agreement on an EC

Common format passport will be treated with the gravest suspicion

in Hong Kong. It is important that the Governor be alerted to

this development and be given plenty of time to convince Unofficials

that it is quite unrelated to the Nationality Bill.

Hong Kong and General Department

6 March 1981

CONFIDENTIAL

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