TNAG-1858-FCO40-2633-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-memoranda-and-minutes-of-me-1989 — Page 80

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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

5 July 1989

Recent events have highlighted concerns within the community over their rights and freedoms. Understandably so. The FAC report recommends that the Hong Kong Government introduce a Bill of Rights as soon as the work on the review of the existing laws makes it practicable. Sir, this is our intention. We will be introducing a Bill of Rights in an appropriate form as soon as possible. As you, Sir, have indicated in your recent statement to this Council you will be saying more about this in your October speech.

I turn now to the question of nationality on which honourable Members have today expressed themselves with great clarity and force. The position of the Hong Kong Government is well known. We would like to see the British Government grant the right of abode to all Hong Kong British Dependent Territories Citizens. This would do much to reassure our people that they should remain here and continue to work for a prosperous and stable Hong Kong. As you indicated, Sir, in giving evidence to the FAC, such a move would be of immense benefit in reassuring the people of Hong Kong. I am not going to rehearse the arguments for our position. They are compelling enough and honourable Members know them well. But I would however like to spend a few moments examining the case put forward by the Foreign Affairs Committee for not granting the right of abode to Hong Kong citizens.

In a nutshell it is that the United Kingdom Parliament would not accept the risk of all 3.2 million Hong Kong people going to settle in the United Kingdom. Indeed, the FAC went further by suggesting that the number would be considerably in excess of the 3.2 million frequently mentioned.

Of course a decision of this nature is not an easy one for any politician to take. It is a matter of judgement and of balancing the obligation of the British Government towards the people of Hong Kong against the risk of not being able to carry through Parliament the necessary changes in legislation. I believe it is accepted by the British Government that the obligation is strong, but the contention is that the risk is overwhelmingly high because it is assumed to be a fact that under certain circumstances over 3 million Hong Kong people would exercise their rights to settle in the United Kingdom. We have argued forcefully that we cannot envisage a situation where anything like that number would ever wish to go to the United Kingdom. The practical problems alone involved in such a massive number of people moving seven thousand miles to set up home elsewhere make it a totally unreal proposition. There is also the assessment, widely accepted in Hong Kong and supported by recent opinion polls, that only 6% of Hong Kong people who were given the right of abode would move to the United Kingdom. So the number of people ever likely to seek to settle in the United Kingdom must not only be less than 3.2 million, it must be a small fraction of that number.

It must surely be relevant to see how other sovereign powers in similar positions to the United Kingdom have regarded their obligations to their dependent territories citizens. Portugal, a small country with a population of 10 million has, we are told, provided for citizenship not only for 100 000 of its citizens in Macau but also for over 3 million of its citizens in former dependent territories. France has