RESTRICTED
Nationality and Treaty Department
Ber. William
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Clive House Petty France London SW1H 9HD
R&R
i Al like
sik
a shit with
Telephone 01-213
M B Eaden Esq Amsterdam
Your reference
221/2/82
See NTD Submusse
bmission
Our reference GNN 340/1(8)
Date
'GA
ARG 3401
24 February 1982
-----
43
Dear Maurice,
PASSPORT FORMAT
1. Thank you for your letter of 12 January.
2. We have carefully considered all the arguments for producing passports in different formats to distinguish between the various citizenship statuses created by the British Nationality Act 1981. As you know, we are not unsympathetic to your views on this. But we have reluctantly come to the conclusion that it would be politically unacceptable to attempt to introduce such a change at the present time, particularly in the light of Ministers' undertakings to the House of Commons to which you referred in your letter of 28 September 1981.
1
HKK343/20
1981
3. As for posts in Europe issuing Hong Kong passports to 'Hong Kong Chinese', we do not think this is a starter. Leaving aside the administrative difficulties, which are not minimal
k
it seems to us that you have underestimated the effect of singling out Hong Kong belongers for this discriminatory treatment. Hong Kong has already demonstrated that it is able to mount a powerful lobby in this country when necessary and we doubt that it would sit down for what would seem to it to be a 'discriminatory' measure aimed at its belongers. Such a reaction might not be logical but it is entirely predictable. Nor, as I pointed out in my letter of 2 November 1981, 'would it be logical to introduce such a system for Europe, without at least Hhk 383/2 including the Passport Offices in the UK. Although no reliable statistics are available, it is likely that their issue of passports to Hong Kong belongers exceeds your own by a wide margin. The Passport Office have already indicated that they would not favour separate formats for the three categories of citizens and we can be sure that they would resist this present proposal.
4.
As we
1981
But we believe there might also be a constitutional objection to your issuing Hong Kong passports to Hong Kong belongers. see it, the constitutional position is that United Kingdom passports are issued by the Passport Office and our posts overseas at the discretion of the Secretary of State in the exercise of the Royal Prerogative. When they give passport facilities to colonial belongers at present, the Passport Office and our posts overseas do not act as the agents of the Governments of the dependent territories. It is important that this distinction is maintained since we would
RESTRICTED
/not