Files on Hong Kong among secret British government archive
Newly uncovered stash of British government documents includes papers on Hong Kong that may reveal handover negotiation details
Thousands of government documents on Hong Kong that have been kept in a secret archive in Britain are expected to be released next year.
The files on the city - which would tower more than 80 metres high if stacked - are among some 1.2 million documents newly found to have been kept from public view.
The British Foreign Office should have declassified the files and handed them to the National Archives, in accordance with the Public Records Acts, which requires all government documents to be made public when they are 30 years old. The Guardian reported on Friday that the total archive was believed to be "far larger than the combined undisclosed archives of every other government department".
According to a basic inventory of the secret archive, some of the documents date back to the 19th century. It does not say how old the Hong Kong files are.
The stash also includes some 100 metres of records related to the United States, and 4.57 metres of files on Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean - the KGB spies who operated inside the Foreign Office and MI6.
The Foreign Office named it the "Special Collections", according to The Guardian. Last year, British Justice Secretary Chris Grayling signed a blanket authorisation to create a legal foundation for the retention of the files for 12 months.
The newspaper said the Foreign Office would have to come up with a plan to declassify and transfer the documents to the National Archives.