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CĆ MR MORRIS MR PAUL
3/3
PRIME MINISTER
CONFIDENTIAL.
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-2'3 MAY 1990
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HONG KONG ASSURANCES
12/3
Following our discussion last week, I have given further thought to the occupational groups which should be covered by the citizenship scheme. As we agreed, the OD(K)
paper I am about to circulate will suggest the exclusion of a considerably wider range of occupations than did the paper circulated on 2 March. On reflection, however, I have concluded that it would not be right to exclude the group of
engineering associate professionals, which not only includes air traffic controllers, but also covers building safety inspectors, and a range of skilled technicians who seem to me
to have a genuinely key role in Hong Kong today.
2.
I am sure that this adjustment to the categories
should help the passage of the Bill through Parliament, as we
would have been vulnerable if we were seen to have excluded
the air traffic controllers. Even so, however, I do have some
concern that by ruling out many of the broad occupational
groups, we may have excluded a small number of genuinely key
people within them and that we may be criticised for doing so. I have in mind, for example, interpreters and the small group of highly qualified, multi-lingual secretaries who have a
crucial part to play in an international trading centre like Hong Kong. There may be other such groups, for example among the information science associate professionals, who include
computer operators.
3.
It seems to me that we have a choice. We could
simply accept the possibility that some arguably key occupations will be excluded because they form part of broader
1.
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