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Westerally and Treaty Department
IN REGISTRY NO. 51
Miss Brett Roddy
Exe
Mr. Willium
Foreign and Commonwealth Office m · Jer Clive House Petty France...
REGISTRYendon SW1H 9HD
INDEX
M B Eaden ES
AMSTERDAM
NO
PA
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Action Taken
Telephone 01-213
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Date
221/2/81
2 November 1981
Lee
Jeni Maurice,
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HKK
PASSPORTS FOR HONG KONG CHINESE
1.
I apologise for the delay in replying to your letter of
28 September about the format of the passport to be issued to
British Dependent Territories citizens (BDTC) after the HK 343/1 01
commencement of the British Nationality Act 1981.
1982
2. On reflection, and despite what I said in my letter of 16 March, we have moved closer to the views you previously held. It is at least arguable that not to distinguish between the passports of the different statuses created by the Nationality Act would be illogical. Nevertheless, as you recognise, it is probable that other factors will argue against introducing any significant new difference between the passports issued in the UK and those issued in the dependencies. But we would not wish to rule out some change in this respect at some future date in advance of the introduction of the European Community common format passport.
3. As to your suggestion that posts in Europe should issue Hong Kong passports to 'Hong Kong Chinese', we still have an open mind on this. But we do see difficulties. Not only would the administrative problems be considerable but it seems illogical to introduce such a system for Europe without including the rest of the world and the Passport Offices in the UK. Nor would it be easy to justify singling out Hong Kong belongers for this special treatment whilst continuing to issue United Kingdom passports to persons connected with other territories. An alternative possibility which has been considered here is that passport applications from BDTC should be sent back to the dependency with which the applicants are connected unless passport facilities are required urgently. too, would not be easy to administer.
This,
4. As you can see, we have come to no firm conclusions as yet. We shall be giving the problem of passport formats and procedures our full attention in the near future. welcome your views and suggestions.
But in the meantime, we
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