TNAG-1561-FCO40-2125-Future-of-Hong-Kong-nationality-and-passports-Hong-Kong-(Br-1986 — Page 14

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CONFIDENTIAL

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M Layden HKD

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FROM: A M LAYDEN, HKD

DATE: 19 March 1986

HONG KONG: DEVELOPMENTS IN MR RENTON'S ABSENCE

•

387

Afrivendusen

Ar's/or Late 2073

for my

dest

JLG

his am

in Hong Kong went very well indeed: agreement

contracting party status in GATT, formal

agreement on right of abode endorsement in BN(O) passports,

progress on certificates of identity, international rights

and obligations, and a favourable "first reading" of Our

1.

JLG III

ん

on separate

чк

Pas

(betvy.),

proposals on shipping. Our submission to the Secretary of

State based on Dr Wilson's summa ry telegram, was copied to

wn Mr Renton.

Nationality

2.

the on

endorsed Mr Renton's

minute

Home Office to agree that

The Secretary of State

recommending that we press the

Ministers should accept the risk identified by the

Attorney-General's office; I then urged this line on the

Home Office at official level, and an

intra-Home Office

wrangle

question appears still to be going on. Meanwhile, Unofficials in Hong Kong are becoming restive at the delay in the laying before Parliament of the revised

nationality Order, and we are coming under pressure to

undertake that Hong Kong

Kong people

people will be given a further

chance to comment on HMG's decisions on the three LegCo

requests before the Order is laid in Parliament,

before i t i s debated. We have told the Governor that we

cannot pre-empt Ministers' decisions on the Parliamentary

tactics before the endorsement and the rest of the

nationality package have even been to CD (K).

I (We shall,

think, have to have at least a two-week interval

publication/laying of the Order and the debates,

or at least

between the

if only to

CONFIDENTIAL