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applies both to Hong Kong and more generally.
On that basis, we
are content with it. However, there are four paragraphs which
cause us some difficulty.
5. The points of difficulty are as follows:
(i) Paragraph 4: it strikes as a little odd to repeat in a Home Office Memorandum what the Secretary of State has already told
the Committee in formal evidence on 22 March. The emphatic
rejection of "a middle way" seems a little inadvisable, given that we have now begun to consider the feasibility of such an approach. It would be better simply to describe the historical position in the
following standard terms:
"The fact that Hong Kong BDTCs and BN (0)s do not enjoy automatic right of abode in the UK reflects the worldwide nationality and immigration policies of successive Governments since the early 1960s. As all parties acknowledged at the time there was need
to take account of the fact that we were no longer able to proclaim a common imperial citizenship and grant the citizens of our colonies and former colonies automatic right of abode in
this country."
(ii)
paragraph 15, (last sentence): the assurance given by
Lord Glenarthur in 1986 was couched in rather stronger terms than
those used by the Home Secretary. As we have relied upon them
since then, they should be repeated here:
"We should consider it an obligation upon any future government to treat with very considerable and particular sympathy the case
for admission to the UK of any individual British national who,
against all our present expectations, came under pressure to
leave Hong Kong".
(iii) paragraph 25, (last sentence): the last clause "and of benefit to the UK" is one which the Home Office regularly seek to
use, and which we seek to resist. It would mean that service of
benefit to the UK was a necessary precondition for a success ful
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