TNAG-2374-FCO40-3449-Hong-Kong-nationality-UK-passport-scheme-British-Nationalit-1991 — Page 108

FROM HONG KONG UNIT, B2 DIU,

immigration and Nationality Department

Lunar House 40 Wellesley Road Croydon CR9 2BY

Telephone 081-760

(GTN 3822)

1555

John Hague Esq

Hong Kong Department

Foreign & Commonwealth Office

King Charles Street

LONDON SW1A 2AH

•CEIVE

03.22.1991 15:59

NO.10

135

HOME OFFICE

ind

Your reference

Our reference

множени

Date

16

March 22, 1991

Dear John,

HONG KONG SELECTION SCHEME: ASSOCIATION

CORRESPONDENCE FROM HONG KONG BAR

Thank you for faxing over to me a copy of the Association's further letter to Lord Caithness of 22 March 1991.

I think HMG should do all it can to bring this correspondence to a close. Ministers went to great lengths during the Parliamentary passage of the Bill to stress that this is the Governor's scheme and that it is for him to select the key personnel to be granted British citizenship by way of assurance. HMG's role now is to ensure that the Governor selects within the parameters set by the Order in Council made under the 1990 Act; it is not to meddle in the way suggested by the correspondence from the Bar Association. Our objective now must be to distance ourselves as far as possible from this sort of detailed argument.

I suggest that the response to this letter should be restricted to an assurance that the Governor has fully taken on board the points which the Association has made and that the Steering Committee will advise him on how best to ensure that barristers will be adequately catered for. The Association should then further their cause with the Governor direct.

yours ever

Jean-

J S PAGE

Hong Kong Unit

B2 Division

Y.