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THE PRIME MINISTER
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WIAD
FED
Hong Kong Passports
Legal Adusers
MPR 11 AP2011
по
1. The Home Secretary and I have given further thought to Hong Kong
passports which we discussed with you on 21 October.
A
We have in
particular considered the questions then raised about the implications
of describing the nationality of Hong Kong belongers as British in
their passports, and on what the passport to be issued in future
to Hong Kong belongers might look like.
2. On the first of these two points the proposed new wording
presents no legal problem as such. The description of nationality
in passports, which are documents to facilitate international
travel, is not bound to follow precisely the definitions of
citizenship in our domestic legislation. There is no doubt that the
holders of Hong Kong passports are British in the internationally
accepted sense that we are entitled to give them consular
protection and to represent their interests abroad.
3. On the other hand to add 'British' in the space provided for
'National status' in Hong Kong passports will affect the symmetry
ad clarity of our original scheme, which was that the entry under
'National status' should in every case repeat exactly the definitions
of citizenship in the British Nationality Act 1981. Under that
scheme there would have been five possible descriptions of national
status in British passports:
SECRET
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