TNAG-1413-FCO40-1889-Future-of-Hong-Kong-annual-report-to-Parliament-on-Hong-Kong-1985 — Page 270

CONFIDENTIAL

DEF

(ii) The

(iii)

(iv)

Annex

Governor's Address of October 1985; with

of supporting departmental summaries significant developments during the year;

an

of

The Financial Secretary's Budget Speech of

February 1985; and

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

of the introduction and the annex of

summaries these will all

these will all be public

supporting departmental

documents.

4.

Having looked at

whether

the

proposed

produce

White a

these documents I have s ome doubts

format would be right. It would

Paper of about 150 pages,

of most

it

consisting of already published material. Of this only

the introduction could properly be said to be a report by

the Secretary of State to Parliament. I wonder if this

would not lead to MPs complaining that they were being provided only with an indigestible collection of

of already

available documents, and that Ministers we re not taking

the trouble to report personally to Parliament.

5. The answer 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 mos t important departmental summaries proposed by the Governor. It would be difficult to

duplicating much of the material in the Governor's speech,

but that is inevitable. The report could cover the

economic position and prospects,

avoid

thus making the addition

CONFIDENTIAL

Page 270Page 271