CONFIDENTIAL
Nationality and Treaty Department
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Clive House Petty France London SW1H 9HD
Telephone 01-213
3794
Se s fu
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20%/%
Cut 30/7
(929)
DJ McDonough Esq
Your reference
B2 Division
Home Office
Lunar House
CROYDON
CR9 2BY
HKK 340/1
IMG/85 16/1335/1
Our reference
AY
GNN 340/15
40 Wellesley Road
Date
2 1 AUG 1986
30 July 1986
LesGISTRY
Aduon Taken
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ADMISSION OF BRITISH SUBJECTS AND BRITISH PROTECTED PERSONS TO CANADA
1. Please refer to your letter of 25 July sending me a copy of Gavin Stewart's letter of 16 June to Wilfred Hyde, and of a draft reply to the Canadian High Commission about numbers of passports issued.
2. The Canadian question raises again the tricky question of the estimated numbers of the various categories of British national. As you say in your draft, we have no breakdown by national status of the number of passports issued overseas. Our estimates of the number of people have been based on the total number of passports issued combined with such figures as our Consular Department is able to provide from their information about British communities abroad.
3. We now quote a figure of 10,000 BPPS. This figure was given in reply to a PQ in 1984 and excludes the 130,000 BPPS connected with Brunei who have now lost that status but were included in the 1980 White Paper figure. As for British subjects, there are, of course, the 150,000 (approx.) Irish, as well as the 50,000 former BSWCS, as mentioned in the 1980 White Paper.
4. It may possibly be worth mentioning to the Canadians that British subjects are defined in the BNA 1981 as Commonwealth citizens, in the hope that this might offer a way round the problem mentioned in the third paragraph of Stewart's letter.
cc:
C Hum Esq, HKD, FCO
DO Amy Esq, MVD, FCO
J Nicholson Esq, Passport Dept
DFB Le Breton
CONFIDENTIAL