FEBRUARY 16, 1981
STATEMENT BY MR EDWARD LYONS Q.C., M.P. (LAB., BRADFORD WEST) AND MR RAY WHITNEY O.B.E., M.P. (CONS., WYCOMBE) ON CONCLUSION OF THEIR VISIT TO HONG KONG FEBRUARY 12-16, 1981
Eve HKK 340/
As members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the
Nationality Bill we are grateful to the Hong Kong Government for
arranging the visit which, although inevitably short, gave us an
excellent opportunity to exchange views on the Bill with representatives
of many groups in Hong Kong. Apart from our talks with His Excellency,
the Governor and his senior officials, we also met the Unofficial Members
of the Executive and Legislative Councils, the Urban Council, the Heung
Yee Kuk, the Hong Kong Association and many individuals able to reflect
opinion in the Colony.
We had both visited Hong Kong on earlier occasions and have
again been impressed by the vitality of the people and the pace of
development in the Colony. Despite our previous experience and although
we were aware of the points made by Sir Paul Bryan, M.P., in the Commons
debate on the Second Reading of the Nationality Bill,
} we were struck by
the degree of local concern about the Bill. We shall do our best to
ensure that this concern is conveyed to Ministers and to our fellow
members of the Standing Committee.
Our discussions led us to conclude, however, that the objects
of the Bill and its limited practical effects may not have been fully
understood in Hong Kong. All the major British political parties have
long recognised that the present state of Britain's nationality legislation
is unsatisfactory and requires up-dating. But it seems that the need to
establish a satisfactorily defined category of citizenship for everyone in
Britain and the Colonies has met with some misunderstanding in Hong Kong.
1982
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/The Bill
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