Mr
Ham,
HKD
MKB 011/2
19 JAN 1988
·
Njall
дерл
We gula
Mr Fortmey/141,
PA
Cu 18/
FROM: PS/Lord Glenarthur DATE: 18 January 1988
cc: Private Secretary
PS/Mr Eggar PS/PUS
Mr Gillmore
Mr McLaren
Mr Meyer, News Dept PRU
VISIT TO LONDON BY MR MARTIN LEE
1. As agreed, I telephoned Mr Martin Lee at his hotel this morning to offer a meeting with Lord Glenarthur followed by a call on the Secretary of State. He immediately asked whether this would be on the same terms as last time i.e. no non-LegCo delegation members present. I confirmed that this was the case.
2. Mr Lee said that he was surprised by this. Since his last visit it had been established through a Parliamentary Question that there was no Parliamentary rule or regulation that laid down that Ministers should not receive a mixed delegation; but that decisions were taken on a case-by-case basis according to the people involved and the nature of their business. I said that we were talking about Government Ministers rather than Parliament; and that I did not see that any Parliamentary rule, if such a thing existed, was relevant. Requests by Hong Kong people for calls on Ministers to discuss representative government were a single "case": it was simply not practicable for Ministers to receive everybody, so they had decided to receive Leg Co members only. This applied across the board, whatever the opinion we expected delegations to express.
3.
Mr Lee said that he heard what I was saying. But he had noticed that Miss Lydia Dunn was being received "by every body in the Foreign Office". I pointed out that he was himself being offered calls on the Secretary of State and Lord Glenarthur. If Miss Dunn had asked Ministers to receive her accompanied by a delegation of non-Parliamentarians, she would have received the same response that he was getting. But she was calling on her own. He would be
welcome on the same terms.
4. Mr Lee then said periectly politely that if our offer was the same as last time, he was unable to accept it. He hoped that there had been no ambiguity about the terms in which his request that Ministers should receive the full delegation had been
/transmitted
18
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.