TNAG-2714-FCO40-3920-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-enquiry-1993 — Page 143

British Consulate General in Hong Kong

44.

The Government share the Committee's view that British

representation in Hong Kong after 1997 needs to be on a scale

commensurate with Britain's commitment to, and interest in,

Hong Kong. In line with this objective, the Government sought to

secure a suitable site in Hong Kong for the construction of the

future Consulate-General. For the reasons set out in the

Government's initial observations (paragraph 15 of Cm 927) the

Government found no scope for implementing the Committee's

recommendation that HMS Tamar be used as the site. A prestigious site was however identified in Supreme Court Road (Colvin House). Following agreement in principle during the Prime Minister's visit

to Peking in September 1991, the Sino-British Land Commission in

Hong Kong formally agreed to the granting of the Colvin House site

to the United Kingdom Government for the construction of the

future British Consulate-General. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office commissioned and briefed six architectural practices to prepare initial sketch designs. The design by Terry Farrell and

Co Ltd was selected in August 1992 as the most suitable

high-quality design. The Government plan that construction of the Consulate-General will begin later this year and that the building

will be ready for occupation during the second half of 1996.

Vietnamese Migrants

45. Since the Government's observations in 1990 there has been

welcome progress towards a durable and humane solution to this

problem. In 1990 the numbers of Vietnamese arriving in Hong Kong

were rising, and the United States and Vietnam had just blocked a

consensus on the repatriation of non-volunteers at a Steering

Committee of the International Conference on Indo-Chinese Refugees

(ICIR). The best hope then seemed to be the creation of a

regional centre in which non-volunteers could be held pending their eventual repatriation. Otherwise there was a grave risk

that the Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA), set up by the ICIR in

1989, might collapse.

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