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stateless and children born after 1st July 1997 to former Hong Kong BDTCs, if they, too, would otherwise be stateless, would acquire British Overseas citizenship. But he did agree that there was a legitimate anxiety about potential statelessness among the future generations. This, he said, was a matter that the Government were looking into without having any commitment to prevent, through the opportunity that now exists in the legislation, this statelessness arising by some amendment in the law.
The Minister went on to refer to some of the provisions of the Chinese nationality Act and in particular Article 7, which says that aliens or stateless persons who are willing to abide by China's constitution and laws may acquire Chinese nationality upon approval of their application provided that they are close relatives of Chinese nationals, or that they have settled in China, or that they have other legitimate reasons.
In passing, I would observe that experts on nationality law who have examined the Chinese nationality law say that, if anything, it contains an even greater element of discretion than we have in ours. In our law, as your Lordships may recall from discussions on the 1982 Bill, the Secretary of State has a power to confer British citizenship on practically anyone he chooses. So, in a similar manner, the Chinese authorities may confer Chinese nationality on anyone they think fit. But the question is whether they would, in fact, do so.
It has been pointed out to me that if the ultimate intention was to allow people of Indian ethnic origin to take up Chinese citizenship, this could easily have been included in the agreement. I do not know anything about the confidential discussions that took place between our Government and the Chinese. I imagine, however, that the Government would have liked to tie up this loose end and that if the Chinese had been at all receptive, the provision would have been a mandatory one and not permissive-in other words, anyone born in Hong Kong or resident in Hong Kong and settled there at the time of the coming into effect of Chinese sovereignty in 1997 would ipso facto have been entitled to Chinese citizenship.
As I think the noble Baroness will agree, we find this provision in all the recent independence Acts on which I recall taking part in the debates, except perhaps that concerning Brunei, about which I am not sure. In almost every case that I can remember where a former dependency has become independent, the legislation has conferred the nationality of the newly- independent state on all those born in, or settled in, that territory at the time of independence. One would have thought that the Government might have pressed this strongly on the Chinese authorities and that the reason why it does not appear in the agreement is that they are not prepared to forego the exercise of this discretion. The corollary of that is that they would prefer that these people should not be Chinese nationals and that they will continue to enjoy, if that is the word, the status of British National (Overseas) which is created under the Bill.
It is true that British Nationals (Overseas) who have lived in Hong Kong for seven years are granted the right of abode there by the Chinese under the terms of the agreement with the People's Republic. But that
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does, not alter the principle that one country should not expect another to give a permanent home to its nationals and that British nationality is the only one in the world that does not carry with it the right of abode in the country of citizenship. Again, the parallel with East African Asians is very close. One objection raised is that separate provisions for the ethnic Indians would be racially divisive and would give preferential treatment to Indians against Chinese. That is not true, because some Indians in Hong Kong have Indian nationality and would not therefore be covered by this amendment. The decisive factor is whether any person now a BDTC in Hong Kong can claim another nationality as well as British National (Overseas) status, which is, in reality, only a travel document.
It has been a strong argument that the Government are confident that the Indian and other ethnic minority communities will want to remain in Hong Kong. And they do want to remain. The last thing that they want is to leave their businesses, which are mostly doing extremely well in the buoyant economy of Hong Kong. If the Government really are confident about the settlement that they have negotiated they will have no qualms in granting full British citizenship, which, as I say, would only be a safety net in the event that the agreement does not work out. Without such a safety net, it is likely that some of the business community will seek to take the opportunities now being offered of citizenship and settlement in other countries outside Hong Kong because they are afraid to stay there.
I should like to add a few words about the question of future generations. This, again, was a matter emphasised by the Council of Hong Kong Indian Associations in our telephone discussion this morning. The status of BOC does not confer any right of transmission to the descendants. The noble Baroness will, I think, agree that this is a matter of some anxiety. Even if one thinks that the citizenship we are now conferring on people of non-Chinese ethnic origin has any value at all, one has still to deal with the question of what happens to the children and grandchildren of those people in future generations. I was talking to one particular gentleman born in Hong Kong whose family consists of three sons and three grandsons. He told me that if a grandson had a further child born after 1997, that child would have BOC status but the child born to a BOC parent after 1997 is stateless because the status is not transmissible. This is again a matter of some anxiety to the Hong Kong Indian community.
I think this is the penultimate opportunity which we shall have of dealing with this important question. I do urge that even though the numbers are very small—we are talking about between 4,000 and 5,000 people, perhaps we should not allow this Bill to depart until we tie up the loose end which is left over from the agreement and we give proper security to a small group of people who have been loyal citizens of the Commonwealth and who deserve to have their future properly safeguarded by your Lordships' Committee. I beg to move.
Baroness Young: The effect of the amendment which has been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, would be to open the way for any British National (Overseas), and thus anyone who is a BDTC