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Mr. Rifkind: The right of citizenship to which I referred is available under existing law to anyone who lawfully enters the United Kingdom and has a lawful right to reside in the United Kingdom. That is quite a different situation. I should say in response to the hon. and learned Gentleman that of course I acknowledge that there are Members on both sides of the House who share his views, and there always have been--it is not a sudden new development. Those views have been expressed on previous occasions. Partly because of that, the Prime Minister gave the additional assurances which, although they did not go as far as some were advocating, were nevertheless warmly welcomed both in Hong Kong and here. That point has therefore been taken into account.

Mr. Hugh Dykes (Harrow, East): I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for giving way again, as he has had many interventions. I refer to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack). On a recent visit we met representatives of that group. Over the years, they have been devoted servants of the British cause--military, political, economic, private and commercial--and some of them would not wish to carry on living in Hong Kong indefinitely anyway. Will my right hon. and learned Friend reconsider the words "in due course" that he used in his last response but one? People may need the flexibility to make such decisions sooner than the Government expect, depending on how matters work out.

Mr. Rifkind: Of course I understand that many individuals have given good and valued service to the United Kingdom. That is true of many of the 6 million people of Hong Kong. I am delighted to acknowledge the fact that it has been true of many thousands--probably tens of thousands--of the people of Hong Kong over the years. It is not an exclusive feature of the group in question. Although in our judgment there is a secure position, we recognise that they also want a sense of security. That is why the Prime Minister gave the additional assurances of an unprecedented kind when he visited Hong Kong earlier this year.

Mr. Giles Radice (North Durham) rose--

Mr. Rifkind: I will take one more intervention and then I must make progress.

Mr. Radice: Would the Government consider putting their assurance in writing to individual members of the ethnic minorities? That would at least be something in their hand.

Mr. Rifkind: If any individual would like such a written assurance, he or she has only to write to us and

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we shall be happy to repeat it. It has all been well publicised, so no one can be in doubt, but if any individual wants such a written reply, I am happy to ensure that one is provided.

In the economic sphere, Britain and China reached agreement earlier this year on the next stage in developing Hong Kong's great container port--already the world's busiest. Twenty or more important contracts and franchises straddling the transition have been endorsed by the joint liaison group, ranging from tunnel management to mobile telephones.

There is progress, too, on another issue of great concern to Hong Kong people: the Vietnamese migrant population. We are working hard to achieve our aim of complete repatriation as soon as possible. Nearly 200,000 Vietnamese have arrived in Hong Kong since 1979. Some 11,000 remain. I was in Vietnam a couple of weeks ago and discussed the matter with senior leaders there. I was pleased by their willingness to help to tackle the outstanding problems in a positive and flexible manner.

Sir Russell Johnston (Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber): The letter circulated by the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley), makes no reference to the fact that, among the 11,000, there are about 1,200 who are recognised as political refugees. What is the Government's attitude towards them?

Mr. Rifkind: There can be no question of the compulsory repatriation of people who are recognised to be refugees. The United Kingdom has already accepted 15,000 such refugees over the past few years. We are in discussion with several countries about granting admission to the remaining refugees, and I hope that we will be able to find places of refuge for them all. We recognise that that is an important objective.

Recently, the House has played its part in Hong Kong's transition. Two Acts of Parliament have this year been added to the statute book. Last month, a third Bill was given three Readings here and sent to another place. One Act provides for decent pension and retirement arrangements for members of Her Majesty's overseas civil service in Hong Kong, whether or not they choose to serve after the handover. I pay tribute to the part that members of that service have played and are playing in Hong Kong's success.

Another Act, fulfilling the pledge given by the Prime Minister, grants British citizenship to the wives and widows of those who fought in the defence of Hong Kong in the second world war. The third Bill provides for reasonable privileges and immunities for the economic and trade office, which we hope the Government of the Special Administrative Region will maintain in London after the handover.

Two other important matters have been resolved in recent months. First, Qian Qichen and I were able to reach agreement in New York in September on the principles for a suitably dignified joint handover ceremony on 30 June. That ceremony will be held in the convention centre extension to which I referred a moment ago. Officials of the two sides are now working on detailed arrangements for an event that is bound to command the attention of the world. I took the opportunity of my meeting with Qian Qichen to tell him that Britain planned to mount a simple farewell ceremony of its own on the Hong Kong waterfront earlier in the evening of 30 June.

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The other matter settled between us was an agreement on the future British consulate-general in Hong Kong. Staff moved into the new building last month. I am pleased to tell the House that Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal will open the new building officially in January. It will be our largest consulate-general in the world, and larger than most of our embassies. There could be no more powerful symbol of our continuing commitment to Hong Kong.

The record of achievement under the auspices of the joint liaison group is, sadly, not the whole story. There are two vital areas in which wide differences between Britain and China remain, and where--I must tell the House frankly--the prospects for full or early agreement are not encouraging. I discussed these difficult issues with Members of the Legislative Council earlier this week.

The first is an area in which hon. Members have taken a close interest since the earliest debates on the joint declaration: the development of representative government. Our efforts to reach agreement with China, through 17 rounds of talks lasting most of 1993 on durable and mutually satisfactory arrangements, are well known. The details were described in the White Paper that my predecessor placed before the House in February 1994. Since then, elections have been held for all three tiers of representative government in Hong Kong on the basis of the legislation adopted by the Legislative Council in the spring and summer of 1994.

Those elections attracted turnouts unmatched in the history of Hong Kong. The representative bodies that they produced have performed their different roles--making laws, holding the Executive to account--with exemplary diligence and notable moderation. They have shown that no one, certainly not the incoming sovereign power, has anything to fear from the measured development of democratic government that we have set in train well within the parameters of the joint declaration and the Basic Law.

Despite that, and despite the clear wish of the Hong Kong community for duly elected Members of the present Legislative Council to complete their natural four-year term, China seems determined to appoint, perhaps as early as next month, some sort of provisional legislature. We continue to make it clear to the Chinese, in public and in private, at every level, that their planned provisional legislature is neither desirable nor necessary. It is not necessary because there is nothing that it can do that should not more properly be done by others before the handover; it is not desirable because Hong Kong already has a duly elected Legislative Council which should be allowed to continue its work, and because a provisional legislature running in parallel with the constitutional Legislative Council risks creating confusion and uncertainty when they are least needed.

We have told the Chinese that we see no justification for the establishment of a provisional legislature. Neither the joint declaration nor the Basic Law makes any mention of such a body. China will have to explain to Hong Kong and the world why it chose to replace a body for which more than a million Hong Kong people voted with one chosen by a hand-picked electorate of 400. I call most sincerely on China to address the anxieties that these plans are creating; to think through the full political consequences of building this legislative edifice on such shaky foundations.

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Exactly how the British and Hong Kong Governments react to the establishment of the provisional legislature depends on what it purports to do and when. Its establishment and operation as a parallel legislature before the handover would seriously call into question China's commitment to its obligations under the joint declaration, but this will be more than a legal debating point. It raises much more fundamental political questions about China's willingness to follow its own principle, enshrined in the joint declaration and the Basic Law, of

"Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong".

I see no benefit in saying more on this difficult and sensitive issue now, beyond encouraging hon. Members and Hong Kong's friends outside it to do all they can in the months ahead to encourage China, in a spirit of well-intentioned advice, to act in this area with all possible prudence.

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