TNAG-1405-FCO40-1880-Future-of-Hong-Kong-passports-and-visas-1985 — Page 157

CONFIDENTIAL

DSR 11C

4. I should be grateful for your views on these

preliminary ideas. If you are happy with our general

approach, we can discuss it, and questions of timing,

with the Home Office. Our proposals assume that we can

reach agreement with the Chinese on a right of abode

endorsement which can be used in BN (0) passports before

and after 1997.

5. On timing, as Ministers have said in Parliament the

time to approach overseas governments would be between

the passing of the Rationality Order in Council and the

issuing of the first BN (0) passports.

Within this time

scale we will want to give overseas governments enough

time in which to inform all their immigration 'posts of

but not

the new status enough time for such posts to have

forgotten about the change before they see their first

BN (0) passports. If necessary the latter purpose could

be achieved by a suitable reminder.

6.

There is the important, related question of Visa

Abolition Agreements (VAAs). As you may know, most of

our VAA's were concluded before UK immigration controls

were imposed upon certain categories of British passport

and

holders as we did not renegotiate them after the 1981

BNA. Instead as described above we issued notes to

other governments informing them of the changes.

On

the same basis, we would not seek to renegotiate VAAS to

include BN (0)s, but simply inform other governments by

means of the notes described in paragraph 2 above of the

creation of a new status.

CONFIDENTIAL

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