TNAG-1744-FCO40-2463-Visits-by-FCO-officials-to-Hong-Kong--including-visit-by-Lor-1988 — Page 195

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Publicity for this new consular task was much more extensive in 1986. Indeed, the Home Office agreed to bear most of the expenses of the exercise. The Immigration Department and the British Trade Commission jointly placed a quarter-page advertisement in the SCMP in July and August 1986 (see specimen copied at Annex A). The Department also distributed information leaflets to British citizens and displayed such leaflets at various control points and immigration offices (see specimen copied at Annex 3). The electoral arrangements were also publicised through the press and various radio and TV programmes. We also wrote to some 300 British firms, clubs and organisations to enlist their assistance in publicising the matter to their members. The number of overseas electors' declarations attested between 11 July and 10 October was 311. Mr Allison was one of them. The total number of declarations attested during this period in 1986 was 12 207, details of which are at Annex C. You can see that we did not do too badly compared with many other posts or dependent territories. FCC's telno 212 of 31 December 1986 (copied at Annex D) emphasised that the reason for the low turn-out was clearly not because of failure on the part of posts to inform local British communities, and that, on the contrary, ministers were grateful for the way the new consular task was carried out.

5.

In April 1937, Consular Department advised that publicity and expenditure on 1936's scale were not necessary as those electors who registered in 1986 would not need to attest again (see Circular '0' 85/87 copied at Annex E). Nevertheless, to encourage eligible British citizens, particularly new arrivals, to register, a joint advertisement similar to that in 1986 was placed in the SCMP in September 1987. With the exception of press release, radio and TV publicity, all the other methods of publicising the arrangements were repeated in 1987. As a matter of fact, Mr Allison, in his capacity of Chairman of the 'United Kingdom Conservatives Abroad (Hong Kong)', wrote to the Director of Immigration on 9 August 1987 offering his help in advertising and publicising electoral registration, as well as requesting for forms and leaflets. On 25 August 1987, we sent him 100 information leaflets and registration forms as requested, but did not take up his offer of publicising the matter on our behalf. In this connection, our line conformed with FCO's advice in paragraph 4 of Circular '0' 35/37 which warned against any association with party political activities. While the low response in 1987 (21 attestations) is clearly not of our making, it appears that Mr Allison has a different bone to pick with us. Nevertheless, given the extent of this department's past and continuous involvement in the registration of overseas electors, as well as the fact that all our staff handling public enquiries are well briefed and there is a special counter in the Travel Documents Section designated to deal with potential overseas electors, one wonders whether there is any substance at all in Mr Allison's complaint.

G.F. 326

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