TNAG-1838-FCO40-2613-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-enquiry-1989 — Page 66

CODE 18-77

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Mr Paul

Reference

47

FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE ENQUIRY INTO HONG KONG

Mr Robert Wilson, Clerk to the Committee is calling on Mr McLaren at 4.00 pm. Mr Wilson will be accompanied by

1.

Mr Mark Hutton, the second Clerk to the Committee and by Mr Phillip Moon, the Committee Assistant. Mr Holt, the Head of PRU, will also be present.

2. In preparation for this meeting, you asked me to find out whether the Foreign Affairs Committee has the power to invite, and, if necessary, summon members of the Hong Kong Government to give evidence before it, as Mr Dennis Canavan claimed in a interview with Hong Kong radio on 24 January (Hong Kong telnos 256 and 257).

3. I have consulted Miss Bailey in PRU and attach two minutes by her on this and other related points. Mr Canavan is right in claiming that the Committee could invite the Governor to give formal evidence, and, if he refuses, could issue a formal order for his attendance (para 10 of the Memorandum of Guidance for officials appearing before Select Committee).

4. There are two relevant precedents: the FAC Enquiry on Gibraltar in 1980/81 and the FAC Enquiry on the Falkland Islands in 1983.

In the case of Gibraltar, formal evidence was taken in Gibraltar both in open and closed session from the Governor and his officials. (According to Miss Bailey, who has spoken to the former Clerk to the Committee, the evidence was not in fact published because the taperecordings proved to be faulty). In the case of the Falkland Islands the Committee took formal evidence in open and closed session, from both the Military and Civilian Governors. Mr Rex Hunt also gave the Committee an informal off-the-record briefing.

5. In Hong Kong telno 223 the Governor asked whether formal records would be taken of meetings with the FAC during their visit to Hong Kong. If the Governor gives formal evidence in either open or private session, formal records will be taken. But evidence of a sensitive or classified nature will not be published provided that its sensitive nature is made clear to the Committee at the time. Sensitive passages in the transcript can be sidelines; asterisks are used to designate passages in the Report where confidential information has been excluded.

6.

In addition, the Committee may also wish to hold an informal off-the-record meeting with the Governor. The Clerk may nevertheless take his own notes for use in preparing the Committee's Report and after the visit prepares a short summary for the Committee's private use. These summaries may also be quoted in the Report but none of the content is attributable. The summary would

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