So, after a fair bit of back and forth with HSBC and trialing some of their services, here's what is possible.
For a vanilla premier account, UK shares can be bought through their hotline, not available as an online service and may be expensive - certainly not something you want to do regularly or trade frequently. Good for quarterly buy/hold in my opinion.
With a Premier account, you cannot transfer shares UK shares in.
A little bit more is available through HSBC Broking Services, for those interested, including share transfers. A new account needs to be opened to HSBC Broking and a face to face interview is required. They say that the balance here is calculated into your TRB. However, it should be noted - this is not the Bank, this is their Brokerage.
http://www.broking.hsbc.com.hk/1/PA_...df/fnc_new.pdf