TNAG-1844-FCO40-2619-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-enquiry-1989 — Page 76

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TRANSCRIPT D: HONG KONG SELECT COMMITTEE AKET I IG

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22 MAR 89

CHAIRMAN:

Is there any truth in the reports that have appeared in some papers that other European Community countries are now prepared to issue passports and right of abode to Hong Kung citizeus wlu presently have BTC passports or citizenship and if that is going - the French have been mentioned in particular to be the pattern might that not undermine the situation?

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FOREIGN SECRETARY:

I have seen newspaper reports to that effect but i do not know whether it is true or not

i am afraid.

But the ability to make that kind of offer of course depends absolutely fundamentally upon the ability to be precisely selective and that, in a way, is the pattern on which the other countries like Canada, Australia, the United States, are offering the prospects of citizenship, because they are engaged in an active immigration policy, and I dare say that if we wished tu engage in an active immigration policy for outstanding talents from Ruritania, Parliament would not object to that, because by definition it would be a selective and purposefully British

scbem:

We stand on the claim for

That is the difference, you see, an obligation for three and a quarter million people, which Parliament turned aside in the 1960s as it did for the rest

of the

Gumonwealth.