109. Some correspondents have questioned whether the special status that the Irish have in our nationality law should remain. The Bill will prove that an Irish Citizen who wishes to acquire British Citizenship will have to tisfy the same conditions for naturalisation as apply to citizens of Commonwealth or foreign countries. As to the privilege referred to in the previous paragraph, the Government consider that with the long historical connection between the United Kingdom and what is now the Republic of Ireland, and the close inter- relationship between families in both countries, the situation should be left unchanged. Accordingly the Bill will provide that Citizens of the Irish Republic who have the right contained in section 2 of the 1948 Act, should continue to be able to exercise it in future.
The Use of 'British Subject' in Other Statutes
110. The term 'British Subject' is used in a number of other United Kingdom statutes to define certain rights and privileges. Among these are the statutes governing the right to vote, the eligibility to serve on a jury, to take certain employment in the public services, and to hold certain ranks in the Armed Forces. The Bill will provide that where a statutory duty or entitlement is expressed in terms of British Subject, it should continue to have the same meaning as it had under the 1948 Act. But the Bill, by establishing a British Citizenship, will make available a ready definition by which those duties or entitlements may be re-defined in the future. It would not necessarily follow that these would always be attached to the holding of British Citizenship; there might be instances in which the present wider definition would remain desirable.
British Protected Persons
111. These are people connected with Protectorates and Protected States and their status is regulated by the British Protectorates, Protected States and Protected Persons Order made under the 1948 Act. Apart from Brunei, which is still a protected state in a limited sense, there are now no territories under British protection, and the number of British Protected Persons remaining is thought to be about 140,000. It will be proposed in the Bill that the status shall be retained, and the Bill will include the power to regulate it by Order in Council. The current Order provides that on acquiring another nationality by voluntary act a British Protected Person shall lose that status, and it is intended to continue this pro- vision.
Miscellaneous Provisions
112. It will be necessary to include in the Act a number of provisions necessary to the working of it and these are likely to be on the same general lines as those contained in the 1948 Act. They will, among other things, give power to the Secretary of State to make regulations; to delegate certain of his powers to Governors of the dependencies and to Lieutenant Governors of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man; to provide that people acquiring any of out citizenships who are not already citizens of a country of which Her Majesty is Queen must take an oath of allegiance before the grant of citizenship becomes effective; to prescribe penalties on conviction of making false statements in connection with applications; and for the charging of fees.
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H. CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS TO THE IMMIGRATION ACT The introduction of British Citizenship conferring the right of abode United Kingdom will call for consequential amendments to the Immi- gration Act, and the proposed Nationality Bill will include these. Much of the amendment will consist of the replacement of the term 'patrial' which will no longer be required, by reference to 'British Citizen'. The effect of these provisions will be that, in the long term, the right of abode in the United King- dom will depend exclusively on the possession of British Citizenship. But those Commonwealth citizens who at the time of coming into force of the Act have the right of abode, but who do not become British Citizens under the transitional provisions of the Bill, will have that right preserved.
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