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Convention. Schedule 2 therefore makes provision within the terms of the Convention whereby stateless persons may in prescribed circumstances acquire British citizenship British Dependent Territories citizenship, British Overseas citizenship, or British subject status as appropriate. In some cases the acquisition of the status in question is automatic, in other cases there is an entitlement to registration if certain conditions permitted by the Convention are met.
5.
During the course of the debates on the Bill the Government made it plain that the provisions of Schedule 2 fully met the United Kingdom's international obligations on atatelessness. Indeed some of the conditions which the Convention permitted
us to impose were not imposed. The current provisions are therefore more generous than our international obligations require.
BN(0) AND BOC STATUS
6. BN(0) status will carry with it similar rights as British Overseas citizenship. BN(0)s may travel on British passports describing them as BN(0)s; like BOCs they will be entitled to British consular protection in third countries; they will be Commonwealth citizens; and they will have an entitlement to registration as British citizens like other British nationals once they have lived here for 5 years,
7.
British Overseas citizenship is a recognised nationality status. Its holders
are not therefore stateless. British Overseas citizens are in exactly the same
position now as they were before the BNA 1981 came into force, when they were British nationals who did not have the right of abode in the United Kingdom. Some 2 million
The such people automatically became British Overseas citizens on 1 January 1983. provisions in the British Nationality Act 1981 which brought this about, and the provisions in Dubedule £ to the DNA 1981 which malte provision for the acquisition of British Overseas citizenship in certain circumstances to prevent statelessness were fully debated and approved by Parliament in 1981.