TNAG-1461-FCO40-1987-Future-of-the-Dependent-Territories-Hong-Kong--Gibraltar-and-1986 — Page 29

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the overall coherence of policy. The need for coordination is growing. A coordinating committee should be set up, possibly

located in the Cabinet Office.

X

CONCLUSION

39 Our general conclusions are as follows:

(a)

as with the Research Department paper this paper too has left on one side consideration of the future of the

Falklands, Gibraltar and Hong Kong;

(b) we have also assumed that, for varying reasons, the status

of BAT, BIOT, South Sandwich and South Georgia is for the

moment frozen;

(c)

(d)

(e)

(£)

it seems inevitable for the foreseeable future that the status of Pitcairn, St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha should remain as at present. Some sort of integration with the UK may be possible at some point in the future, but such policies would involve considerable risks and difficulties in the short and medium term and are not at

present recommended;

however further movement towards independence is desirable and should be possible for the six territories in the Caribbean and Bermuda, the US being the ultimate guarantor

of security. There are potentially significant costs of not moving in this direction. It is difficult to predict exactly by what date this might be achieved but it should not be impossible to bring all of them to independence by the year 2000, and Bermuda some time before then;

to achieve independence progress needs to be made on three

fronts: security, economic, political/constitutional. The necessary progress will not be made without HMG becoming

more actively involved;

a programme of economic and political action designed to bring this about, along the lines described in Section VI,

should be worked out in detail so that the costs and

benefits can be properly assessed. The costs to the UK of

extending the Regional Security System (RSS) to embrace the newly independent states should also be looked at;

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