TNAG-2191-FCO40-3128-Hong-Kong-nationality-package-1990 — Page 160

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courts against the Governor's refusal to recommend. The risk of

judicial review in London is considerably reduced by the very

limited circumstances in which it would be possible under the

Bill for me to decline to act on the Governor's recommendation.

The Garrison

29. In his letter to me of 21 December, the Defence Secretary

asked for 2,000 of the 50,000 places to be set aside for locally engaged personnel (who, as uniformed soldiers, perform a wide

range of military functions in the Garrison) and civilians.

There are 4,000 such staff and, the Defence Secretary argues, if

failure to look after their interests meant that they fell

substantially below complement, difficulty would be encountered

in running the Garrison and, replacements would have to be flown

in from the UK.

30.

The purpose of our scheme is to give key personnel who are

emigrating from Hong Kong the confidence to remain up to 1997 and

beyond. The locally engaged staff of the Garrison are not

emigrating in significant

significant numbers, neither will they remain

employed after 1997. In so far as they might be considered "key"

people, it will be open to them to apply, in competition with

others, under the appropriate remaining groups in the GAS (for

example in the engineering and technical categories). It would

not, I believe, be right to give them a special allocation. That

would cause considerable resentment in HK because it would be

seen as HMG locking after UK, rather than HK, interests. Because

the Garrison is HMG's responsibility, it is up to us to find a solution to the possible future loss of locally engaged staff. Privatisation of some of the Garrison functions and the promise of transfer to the main UK forces on completion of tours of duty

appear to be two possibilities. But I recommend that no special

allocation should be reserved for Garrison staff.

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