CONFIDENTIAL
Structure of the Bill (the various forms of citizenship etc)
2.
With the exception of the Gibraltar amendment the Government have held their position on all these citizenships and categories. Their position has been to have distinctive citizenships or statuses for all categories other than British citizens which could not be confused with British citizenship; and to treat all the dependencies alike in the distinctive collective citizenship created for them.
3. The major attack on the Government's position in all these areas came from
a.
•
c.
the Gibraltar amendment, which would put Gibraltarians in the collective citizenship for the dependent territories but would give them individually the right to register as British citizens (passed by 150 112);
an amendment to give Falkland Islanders British citizenship automatically and to allow them to transmit it indefinitely (failed 90 : 90);
an amendment introduced by Hong Kong supporters to give British citizens, CBDT and BOC the additional status of British national (failed 102: 105).
Possibilities at Third Reading in the Lords
4. There will probably be an attempt by its promoters to amend the Gibraltar amendment at Third Reading in the Lords to remove defective wording, but the Government will not attempt to overthrow the amendment then. We are told that it should be out of order to introduce substantive amendments in relation to the Falkland Islands or nomenclature at Third Reading along the lines of those defeated at the Report Stage, but we cannot be one hundred per cent certain that an attempt will not be made.
5. There should therefore be no question of the Government introducing substantive amendments on these points at Third Reading in the Lords even if they wished to do so. Moreover there is no indication that the Home Office have any such wish. Their position at official level - and they say it is the Home Secretary's view also is that there can be no question of concessions to the Falkland Islands and Hong Kong to compensate for the Gibraltar amendment. The Home Secretary feels that Hong Kong in particular have had major concessions already. Hong Kong's various proposals on nomenclature have been discussed and rejected by the Home Secretary at various times over the last 2 years (except for a narrower suggestion the use of British Dependent Territories Citizen instead of CBDT - which has recently been mooted). The Home Office view is that all efforts should now be turned to holding the present position in the Lords and overthrowing the Gibraltar amendment in the Commons.
/Commons
CONFIDENTIAL