TNAG-1724-FCO40-2437-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1988 — Page 261

Supplementary to Question No. 5 LexCo meeting on 27 January 1988

Mr. CHEONG-LEEN: Sir, I consider myself a fairly hard-nosed

Legislative Councillor when it comes to question and answer

period but this kind of bureaucratic gobbledegook on the part

of the Secretary for Security leaves me completely amazed.

So before I lapse into any form of vocal coma, may I ask

the Secretary for Security

whether he has asked the British

Government whether they have made any contact with the USSR

Government along the lines I have suggested, what has taken

and

been

place, whether there has any follow-up as a result?

Has

the Hong Kong Government obtained any information concerning

this suggestion ?

SECRETARY FOR SECURITY:

to the British Government.

Yes, Sir, I have put the question

I am afraid the bureaucratic

gobbledegook requires me to say that negotiations with

k.

other

dovernments must, for the time being, remain confidential.

(ত)

Mrs. FAN:

Government are

Sir, we have been told that the British

taking

every

appropriate opportunity

to emphasise the need to work for a solution to this problem.

We have been told this on numerous occasions over the last

few years.

Can the Secretary for Security state if any

headway has been made by the British Government in definitive

terms in recent months ?

Secretary for Security:

Yes, Sir, the two aims we

are

pursuing, of course, are the temporary, as it were, solution

of more retsettlement and the permanent one of repatriating

economic migrants. Progress is, I am sure, being made,

but I am afraid I cannot give details at this stage.