THE British Government is set to reject calls from both the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and Amnesty International for Hong Kong to have its own commission on human rights.
The Foreign Office is currently working on its reply to the committee report on China and Hong Kong issued earlier this month.
Officials admit that one of its tougher suggestions, that a human rights commission be set up, will be turned down.
The official view will be that such bodies are ''toothless'' - the position taken by Governor Chris Patten in his initial response to the Amnesty International report on Hong Kong last week.
But the real thinking is that China could soon override such a body and that drawing one up would only further incense Beijing, leading to accusations of continual interference in its internal affairs after 1997.
The official reply to the Foreign Affairs Committee report is likely to be published towards the end of May or early June.
Like the report itself, it will contain few surprises.