TNAG-2333-FCO40-3394-Future-of-Hong-Kong-Hong-Kong-Court-of-Final-Appeal-Hong-Ko-1991 — Page 60

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4.

These amount to a net addition of 7 or 8 Bills, several of which are likely to be lengthy and/or politically contentious and we must find offsetting deletions from the programme. We propose

that these should be: the Insider

(Deregulation) Bill;

Dealing Bill; the Agriculture

the Welfare of Animals at Slaughter Bill;

Laundering Bill; the Judicial

Security Equal Treatment Bill and the

the Drug Trafficking and Money

Pensions Bill; the Social

Friendly Societies Bill. Public consultation has raised the

expectation that there will be a Friendly Societies Bill next

Session and drafting of it is well advanced.

recommend that consultation

We therefore

should proceed this Summer on the

basis of a draft Bill, and if all the potential technical

difficulties can be ironed

out, we would be prepared to

contemplate adding this Bill back.

5. Overall, these changes would leave us with a

programme of 23-24 Bills with quite a bit of politically attractive material. This may be on the heavy side for a fifth Session, but we reckon

that it provides a satisfactory basis on which to take forward policy clearance and drafting over the provisional programme now proposed is set out in Annex A; while Annex B lists and comments on the deletions and additions.

next few months.

The

6. I have written separately to colleagues significantly affected by the changes and those whose proposals for further additions FLG considered could not be accommodated. I should, however, draw attention in particular to the Hong Kong (Appeals) Bill which comes into this category, since it was specifically mentioned at the Cabinet discussion in February. FLG noted the Foreign Secretary's view that the ending of appeal rights to the UK is an important part of the preparations for 1997 and must be in place well before then, but did not accept that legislation next Session was essential. Despite his advice that the Bill was unlikely to be as contentious as last Session's Hong Kong legislation, we

that there were risks associated with it

which should not be run in a fifth Session. We propose however

felt

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