TNAG-2189-FCO40-3126-Hong-Kong-nationality-package-1990 — Page 111

LORD

PRESIDENT

OF THE

COUNCIL

HKD

CONFIDENTIAL

Ps

Ps | Mr Manda

нко

HKD 340/4 Mr Mclaren

RECEIV

1 1 APR 1990

DESK OFFICER

INDEX

F

PRIVY COUNCIL OFFICE

WHITEHALL, LONDON SWIA 2AT

Mr Gillmore

REGISTRY Mr Yeo

Mr Lidington

M.P

PA

Action Taken

AN 7/1

154

NTO

Davis

pa Mezla

5 February 1990

добит gether Paul.

Tonote Paras. 3+4 in particular.

8/2مل

ce Mur Whomursky

M912

HONG KONG ASSURANCES

You wrote to Douglas Hurd on 11 and 31 January setting out your proposals for the structure and timing of the Hong Kong Bill. I have also seen Douglas's letter to you of 1 February.

I entirely support your proposal to reserve the details of the selection scheme and the secondment scheme for subordinate legislation, in order to keep the Bill as short as possible. Equally I am sure you are right to plan to publish an outline scheme as background to the Parliamentary debates. I know that you will appreciate that, from the business managers' point of view, the shorter the Bill the better its prospects of a swift Parliamentary passage. Any steps you can take to reduce the overall length of the Bill further during its preparation would clearly be helpful.

The Bill's progress will also be crucially affected by the timing of its introduction. Ideally, I should like the Bill to have a Second Reading before the House rises for the Easter adjournment. I recognise that this is likely to be too ambitious an objective, given the complexities of the details of the schemes. But the Bill really must be introduced before the Easter adjournment if we are to have a realistic chance of obtaining Royal Assent in July as we would wish.

Finally, I note that Douglas sees advantage in taking the Committee Stage of the Bill on the floor of the House, presumably in order to complete the Commons stages quickly. This is a matter on which I have been pressed by a number of our backbenchers, most recently at business questions last Thursday (Hansard column 441). I indicated in reply to a question from Nicholas Budgen that we had no plans to handle the Bill other than in the normal way in Standing Committee. Tim Renton and I both have reservations about taking all stages of this Bill on the floor. We believe that the balance of advantage for the Government might lie in applying the usual procedures in this case. Although I would be happy to discuss the matter further,

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