TGLALI
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH-
CONFIDENTIAL
JM Lyon Esq B4 Division Home Office
Lunar House CROYDON
Han 34011
нии
RECEIVE
FAISTRY
2 5 APR 1986
DESA
INDEX
PA
REGISTRY Action Take..
24 April 1986
Der John,
HONG KONG: NATIONALITY ORDER IN COUNCIL
1.
David Wilson, the Assistant Under-Secretary who supervises this department, has discussed with Lord MacLehose the Government's response to the three requests from LegCo on the nationality Order in Council. You will recall that in the House of Lords debate on the draft Order Lord MacLehose, together with the other noble Lords who participated, spoke in favour of acceptance of all three requests. But in his conversation with Wilson he was disposed to be helpful and to suggest ways in which the Government could make the best of its case for rejecting the request for the granting of British citizenship to ethnic minorities.
2.
Lord MacLehose made three points. The first was that it would be helpful if, in advance of the House of Lords debate on the Order, there could be an informal briefing of interested Peers. We agree that this could be very useful. We imagine that the briefing might most appropriately be given by Lord Glenarthur, perhaps accompanied by Baroness Young. I understand that
that Lady Young would be very ready to take part if her programme permits.
3. Second, Lord MacLehose suggested that the Government might lay some emphasis on the numbers of BOCS elsewhere in the world. It could be argued that if British citizenship was granted to the ethnic minorities who would otherwise have acquired BOC status, the status of other BOCs would be weakened both in their eyes and in the eyes
of the authorities who dealt with them. (This is particularly so since, in much of their lobbying, the Hong Kong Indians have been at pains to characterise British Overseas Citizenship as "worthless". Government's acceptance of their request for British citizenship might well, therefore, have been seen as
The
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