TNAG-2050-FCO40-2920-Visits-by-Lord-Caithness--Minister-of-State-for-Foreign-and--1990 — Page 112

Mr Lee Chong-Chee

Staff Side Chairman

PS/Lord Caithness

I submit a draft reply

Rosalind Harden 4/11

March

X

R M Marsden, HKD

Disciplined Services Consultative Council

Room 139 CGO, East Wing

Lower Albert Road

Hong Kong

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2. Me Marsden

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JOINT REQUESTS OF FOUR DISCIPLINED SERVICES

Lord Caithness has asked me to thank you for your

letter of 20 September about various issues of concern to members of the Disciplined Services Consultative Council. Lord Caithness was glad to have had the opportunity to meet you and other representatives of the Disciplines Services Consultative Council while he was in Hong Kong and to hear your views at first hand.

Firstly, the question of right of abode in the UK. You suggest that the quota of 7,000 places reserved for the Disciplined Services under the nationality package is too

small.

Given the overall ceiling on numbers, we cannot do not

accept that this figure is ungenerous. On the contrary, the number of assurances reserved for members of the Disciplined Services is proportionately much higher than that for the rest of the community or for the Public Service as a whole.

Secondly, pensions. You say that the Basic Law does not contain any guarantee that civil servants will continue to be employed by the Government of the Hong Kong Special

MATAAK/1

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