CONFIDENTIAL
DSR 11C
4. I should be grateful for your views on these
preliminary ideas. If you are happy with our general
approach, we can discuss it, and questions of timing,
with the Home Office. Our proposals assume that we can
reach agreement with the Chinese on a right of abode
endorsement which can be used in BN (0) passports before
and after 1997.
5. On timing, as Ministers have said in Parliament the
time to approach overseas governments would be between
the passing of the Rationality Order in Council and the
issuing of the first BN (0) passports.
Within this time
scale we will want to give overseas governments enough
time in which to inform all their immigration 'posts of
but not
the new status enough time for such posts to have
forgotten about the change before they see their first
BN (0) passports. If necessary the latter purpose could
be achieved by a suitable reminder.
6.
There is the important, related question of Visa
Abolition Agreements (VAAs). As you may know, most of
our VAA's were concluded before UK immigration controls
were imposed upon certain categories of British passport
and
holders as we did not renegotiate them after the 1981
BNA. Instead as described above we issued notes to
other governments informing them of the changes.
On
the same basis, we would not seek to renegotiate VAAS to
include BN (0)s, but simply inform other governments by
means of the notes described in paragraph 2 above of the
creation of a new status.
CONFIDENTIAL
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