MAY.02 '86 11:21 GMT HO 2 LUNAR HOUSE
P.03
advance to visit the United Kingdom.
This is the position under the current
Immigration Rules and I can assure the House that this Government has no intention of introducing any visa requirement for such visitors. An explanatory leaflet will
be given to each passport holder setting out the holder's position under the
Immigration Rules. I am glad that our response to this request has been welcomed
by the Unofficial Members of the Executive and Legislative Councils, who have said
they are confident that it will greatly help to enhance the acceptability of BN(Q)
passports to third countries.
9. We have also agreed to meet the concern for ex-servicemen. We understand there are about 270 former servicemen who fought in Hong Kong's defence in the second World
War.
Of these, some 50 or so are eligible for registration under section 4(5) of the British Nationality Act 1981 because they are or could become British Dependent
Territories citizens who fought with local Hong Kong units such as the Hong Kong Volunteers, and who therefore served the Crown under the Government of Hong Kong as the legislation requires. I am ready to give sympathetic consideration to applications for British citizenship from these former servicemen who are eligible under this provision. The remaining 210 or so are not, however, eligible, either because they are not and could not become British Dependent Territories citizens,
or because they fought with regular British Forces Units. So to meet their needs, I have agreed also that any of the 270 (including the 60 who may apply for British citizenship) may be accepted here for settlement, together with their dependants. We have been glad to meet the concern about the former servicemen in this way, and we are glad too that the Unofficial Members of the Executive and Legislative Councils have accepted that these arrangements are a fitting recognition of the service these
servicemen have given to Hong Kong.
10. We considered long and hard the third request - that British citizenship should be granted to British Dependent Territories citizens who were not ethnically Chinese and who after 1997 would otherwise be stateless. But we concluded that it would not
be right, nor was it actually necessary to do so,
11. We decided it was not right to grant them British citizenship because, while we want and we shall fully meet our obligations to the people of Hong Kong, we had at the same time to weigh the implications for settlement and citizenship in this
country and in other parts of the world.