TNAG-1849-FCO40-2624-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-enquiry-1989 — Page 35

24 MAY '89 19:55 FROM COI TECH RADIO

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TRANSCRIPT I

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SELECT COMMITTEE ON HONG KONG

24 MAT 1989

CHAIRMAN:

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17

I am not sure you are carrying the Committee

entirely with you Minister at this stage but we must press

on or we shall never get to the case by case and the

marginal cases and so on, to which we all keep referring.

Just one more observation related to immigration

policy generally. We have heard about the people from

Kacao who can come to Portugal and become BC citizens and

then come here. There is a possibility I understand that

people from Hong Kong can go to Macao so that leakage

could occur through that system.

Ve have heard about the French apparently being

ready to offer passports to certain employees of French-

owned firms in Hong Kong and we have had earlier exchanges

already this afternoon about the problems of both being

part of a European Community which has free movement of

capital, goods and people, and the right of abode

available for people in the Community, anywhere in that

Community, trying to reconcile that with an immigration

policy designed to keep primary immigration to a minimum.

Is there actually a danger in all this that through

the sheer pressure of leakage in the international system,

our efforts to deny right of abode through British policy

to these millions of peole who, as you rightly say they do

not actually want to come here but merely want insurance,

are going to be set at naught?

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