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Position of Unofficials and Locally Recruited Civil Servants
3. The Governor is very concerned that senior local Civil Servants,
and now Unofficials, should be given an assurance that they would
not be excluded by the provisions of the Bill from acquisition of
British Citizenship if the Chinese took Hong Kong over. This is a
very delicate issue which has only been raised recently. Hong Kong
had hoped that Crown Service in Dependent Territory Governments
would qualify locally recruited civil servants for naturalisation
as British Citizens. This was never the intention. Only those who
are in Crown Service overseas under the Government of the United
Kingdom qualify for consideration on these grounds. (Copies of the
relevant clauses (4(1) and 40(1) of the Bill, and paragraph 1(3) of
the first Schedule) are attached.) There is a serious problem over
people whose work places them in exposed positions. But action to
amend the Bill may be very difficult. We are examining the proposal
and Mr Raison said, in winding up the debate on the Second Reading
of the Bill, that there would be an opportunity to look at the issue
in Committee.
Other Matters
4. There is also concern in Hong Kong on such matters as safe-
guarding the freedom of travel of CBDT's to third countries, the
format of passports and entry certificates, description of new
citizenship in passports and statelessness. However these are only
likely to be mentioned in passing since they are technical points
which are, with the exception of statelessness, outside the scope
of the Bill.
Hong Kong and General Department
30 January 1981
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