TNAG-1413-FCO40-1889-Future-of-Hong-Kong-annual-report-to-Parliament-on-Hong-Kong-1985 — Page 266

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(ii)

The

Governor's Address of October 1985; with

Annex

of supporting departmental summaries significant developments during the year;

an

of

(iii)

The Financial Secretary's Budget Speech of

February 1985; and

DEF

(iv)

The Financial Secretary's 1985 half yearly Economic Review, which is put out in September.

(I attach copies of (iii) for this year and (ii) and (iv) for 1984)

With the exception of the introduction and the annex of

supporting departmental summaries these will all be public

documents.

4.

whether

Having

the

looked at

proposed

the se documents I have

format would be right.

s ome doubts

It would

mos t of it

produce a White Paper of about 150 pages,

the introduction could

consisting of already published material. Of this only

properly be said to be a report by

to Parliament. I wonder if this

complaining that they were being

the Secretary of State

would not lead to MPs

provided only with an indigestible collection of already

available documents, and that Ministers we re not taking

the trouble to report personally to Parliament.

5. The an swer to this might be to expand the introductory

section SO that it became the main body of the report, and

to annex to it only the Governor's annual address to

LEGCO. The report could include a general summary of the

events of the year, starting with the Agreement and

related areas, such as the Joint Liaison Group, and going

on to take in the most important departmental summaries

proposed by the Governor. It would be difficult to avoid duplicating much of the material in the Governor's speech,

but that i s inevitable. The report could cover the

economic position and prospects,

thus making the addition

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