TNAG-1565-FCO40-2130-Future-of-Hong-Kong-nationality-and-passports-Hong-Kong-(Br-1986 — Page 97

Our reference:

Your reference :

CONFIDENTIAL

HOME OFFICE

Lunar House, Wellesley Road, CROYDON CR9 2BY

Telephone: 01-760 2832

A Sate 29/4

Mr. Hill

619)

Bush of this mes

For

evagt. Let's discuss builts

NTY/87 1/387/8

CO Hum Esq

Hong Kong Department

Foreign & Commonwealth Office

LONDON SW1A 2AH

Han 34011

нии

RECEIVE:

RACISTRY

30 APR 1986

DESK OFFICER

INDEX

PA

REGISTRY

Action Taken

Сла

291

28 April 1986

Dear Chustyher.

HONG KONG NATIONALITY ORDER

COUNCIL

Thank you for your letter of 24 April and for passing on to us the helpful suggestions which Lord MacLehose has made.

I am sure that it is right in principle to do our best as far as possible to meet Lord MacLehose's suggestions. As you know, in consultation with you, we have already started to do so. The text of the letter to Mr Sital made the points about British Overseas citizenship which you suggested, and went as far as we thought prudent in giving words of comfort.

I agree that we should recommend that our Ministers in the House of Lords hold a briefing meeting for interested Peers. I think this might best be offered in the Alice de week of 5 May, and we shall put up a submission to our Ministers. The meeting would - presumably be by invitation, and it would no doubt be for our Private Office to make

the necessary arrangements through the Whip's office.

Lord G's

Моли

I agree we may be able to make something of the British Overseas citizenship argument, but it will need to be presented with some care. We must avoid giving the impression that we might accept this argument if it were not for the consequences elsewhere; or that British Overseas citizens elsewhere necessarily have difficulties in dealings with the authorities of the countries in which they are resident. But we can certainly make something of the point.

We have, as you know, already modified the words of comfort we are offering in our earlier discussions with you. We have also made it clear in the statement and in correspondence that the decisions Ministers have made is based on the Government's current judgement of the present position. I suspect, as you say, that is as far as we should go. Further modifications of the undertaking will only cause confusion as to the Government's intentions. Ministers might, of course, wish to point out the value of this expectation in briefings, but I doubt if it would be prudent for them to become too expansive. They will then only be pressed to repeat in public what they have said in private, and the fact is, of course, that we cannot bind a future Government, nor can we easily speculate now about how we would expect such Governments to respond in particular hypothetical circumstances. Indeed, I should have thought that if we speculated too much, we should only risk making it seem that

CONFIDENTIAL