Your question in relation to the answer to 173W
refers to the husbands/male fiancé, provisions of
the proposed amendments to the Immigration Rules.
Perhaps I could first take the figure of 3,000
which you cite. Tim Raison has made it clear
that 2,500 3,000 possible additional applications
resulting from the change in the Rules could be made
in the Indian sub-continent. You may care to look
at the evidence given by Tim Raison to the Sub- Committee on Race Relations and Immigration on 25
October about the basis for this estimate. There has
never been, even before the 1980 change in the Rules,
a significant number of applications from women of
Hong Kong origin in the UK to bring in husbands or
fiancés. We have no reason to think that the pro-
posed change in the Rules, when and if implemented,
will alter the situation. It will of course only
benefit those women who under the Nationality Act
will be British citizens.