TNAG-2216-FCO40-3183-Position-on-the-Executive-Council-of-Peter-Duffell--Commande-1991 — Page 39

HKB 011/12

Mr Stone

CBF'S POSITION ON EXCO

CONFIDENTIAL

FROM:

Mr Martin's

حلام

Its start froto will with title as here

(5)

PF Ricketts

Hong Kong Department

DATE:

17 October 1991

CC:

Mr Burns

3

Mr Cox

Mr Saunders

Mr Smith, NPDD

Ms

Brooks Legel

Legal Advisers

1.

The Governor alerted us by telegram before his visit to

his wish to raise this issue with us.

2.

We talked about it when the Governor saw Mr Burns on the

evening of 16 October. The Governor recalled that the question of removing CBF from ExCo had been considered some time in the period 1984-86. He was clear that we now needed

to take a decision to do so on the following grounds:

-

having a British official in the form of CBF as an ex

officio member of ExCo was anachronistic when Exco was

moving in the direction of a more operational body with members sharing collective responsibility for decisions

taken;

—

there was a serious mirror-image problem: if CBF stayed on ExCo up to 1997 it would be easier for the Chief Executive

to include the Senior PLA officer in the SAR on the

post-1997 ExCo;

ExCo rarely, if ever, dealt with security/defence issues. This reflected the fact that although the Governor is Commander-in-Chief, he does not have operational control of British Forces in Hong Kong. Security issues of interest to

TEDAFL/1

CONFIDENTIAL