Home Office
PASSPORT DEPARTMENT
Clive House 70-78 Petty France London SW1H 9HD
Business Hours
6497
Telephone 01-213
GTN 213
Monday to Friday 9am to 4.30pm
Mrs J SC Priest
reference
Hong Kong Department
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
HKK 040/28
ото
Our reference
London
RECEIVER
EGISTRY
GP 1/6/5 84
SWIA 2AH
2 5 JUN 1985
17 June 1985
Date
Jaja,
DES
INDEX
REGISTRY
PA
Action Taken
w
HONG KONG: BN(0) STATUS: PASSPORTS MATTERS
Thank you for your letter of 3 June enclosing the EXCO memorandum which makes sense of the Hong Kong telegram. I have also seen the Nationality and Treaty Department note of 12 June to you.
173
Current retention of BDTC and BN(0) passports
2. I share NTD's reaction to the suggestion that, for visa purposes, it might be necessary for an individual to hold both passports. We would wish to resist this. I have difficulty in identifying a situation where the individual is not in a position to anticipate problems over visas and plan application for passports or visas accordingly.
Passport options
3. I had noted that d) of paragraph 11 of the Memorandum appeared to be deficient and agree the point made by NTD.
Passport format
4. The Home Secretary is likely to hold to the view on the basis of recent advice that computerisation of passport issue, and with it introduction of the new passport format, cannot now be achieved by 1987; the aim would be 1988. There will be exchanges, no doubt, between our Departments on this but, once concluded, we shall need to tell Hong Kong.
5. On the basis that we cannot meet the 1987 target, we would wish to go to Ministers soon on:
a) the type of passport to be issued to BN (0)s from 1987 until the common format look-a-like becomes available. We would expect it to be the traditional hard blue covered document with the Secretary of State rubric (I think NTD have some thoughts about pre printing the nationality status into the passports);
b) the common format look-a-like. We await FCO views on the degree of look-a-like which we can produce; the context is wider than Hong Kong. I anticipate however, that we shall decide on burgundy red 'United Kingdom etc', emblem and 'Passport' on the front, and no EC references. It would
7+