Registry No.
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret,
Secret.
Confidential.
Restricted.
Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
In Confidence
DRAFT
Letter
To: -
A J Butler Esq Private Secretary Home Office
Queen Anne's Gate London SW1H 9AT
DSR 11
Type 1 +
From
Private Secretary
Telephone No. Ext.
Department
NATIONALITY BILL
1.
Thank you for your letter of 5 July enclosing details of
the proposed Nationality Bill.
2. It is obvious that a great deal of thoughtful work has
been done on this Bill and Lord Carrington is grateful to the
Home Secretary for letting him know what he has in mind. The
Foreign and Commonwealth Office can readily agree to many of
the proposals in the memorandum and its annex and we are
particularly grateful for the proposed arrangements for the
children born overseas to Crown Servants. This has indeed
been a point of grievance for many years among members of the
Diplomatic Service and we are sure they will be very pleased
at this outcome.
3. Lord Carrington is inclined to agree with the Home
Secretary in not doing anything which could risk upsetting
relations with the Irish Republic. If the dual nationality
provisions are not causing too many problems in practice, we
will probably have little to gain and much possibly to lose by
amending the status quo. On the pre-1949 people who can sign
a declaration and thus remain British Subjects, the fact that
they are still coming forward at the rate of 3-4,000 a year
indicates that the entitlement is popular which is probably a
good enough reason to retain it indefinitely.
should hear the views of the Secretary of State for Northern
Perhaps we
/Ireland
Du 0532000 800M 5/78 HMSO Bracknell
CONFIDENTIAL