TNAG-2359-FCO40-3430-Official-visits-from-the-UK-to-Hong-Kong-1991 — Page 26

E.R.

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Hong Kong Immigration Department could give an estimate of the

number of children likely to be covered by any concession and

would begin work on this.

14.

A major task facing Mrs Dee's department was the changeover

from BDTC status to BN (0) status. This could involve them in

collecting in and issuing around 3.2 million passports. They

were about to amount a low-key publicity campaign.

15.

Mrs Dee was concerned over the planning for the handover to

the BTC of UK visa work currently undertaken by her department.

She needed to be closely involved in the planning which should

commence shortly. Questions such as whether any of her staff

were to be transferred to the BTC or whether she should plan to make phased redundancies in the were forefront of her mind. I

said that this was a matter for my colleagues in the FCO and we

in the Home Office had not been involved. I would relay her

concerns to the FCO.

16.

Mrs Dee's department had recently faced a spate of requests

from the Department of Employment to do checks on cooks who had

applied to come to the UK. I expressed surprise at this as I

could not see how a cook would qualify for a work permit. Mrs

Dee confirmed that the checks

the checks had indeed confirmed that the

person had no claim under the Immigration Rules to enter the UK. I asked her to write to me with facts and figures so that we in B2 could raise this with the Department of Employment.

17. Mr Lawrence Leung, Director of Immigration I put to Mr

Leung the proposal of a reference in the Governor's Report to an

increase in the numbers of recommendations in 1992 that I had

already mentioned to others and registered with him the need for

the Home Office to be involved at an early stage in any of review of the schemes I also said that the Hong Kong Government should

not assume that the Home Secretary of the day would be prepared

to modify the present scheme.

18. Mr Leung said that the preference in Hong Kong would be for

the second tranche to follow immediately on from the first. I