Immigration and Nationality Department
Lunar House 40 Wellesley Road
Croydon CR9 2BY
Telephone 081-760
(GTN 3822)
J C Morris Esq
1228
Hong Kong Department
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
Whitehall
LONDON SW1A 2AF
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Date
21 December 1990
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Dear Joh
GIBRALTAR:
A SCHEME FOR HONG KONG
You wrote to Roy Harrington on 12 and 24 October about the Government of Gibraltar's wish to set up a scheme of assurances for Hong Kong asking what sort of scheme we could recommend since the Gibraltarians had evidently drawn a blank about how best to proceed. I am sorry that we have not been able to send you an earlier reply.
We have looked at this in some detail and we have come to the conclusion, in short, that because Gibraltar is a British Dependent Territory there is restricted scope for it to run an independent scheme offering assurances which do not involve the recipients leaving Hong Kong.
It is clear that the Governor of Gibraltar can grant residence there whenever he believes that to be in Gibraltar's interest. Thus it is, for example, open to Gibraltar to operate a scheme similar to our own immigration provisions which would enable people to settle there by virtue of investment. There are, however, severe difficulties in the way of converting such arrangements into any form of scheme of assurances which would confer Gibraltar BDTC status on people who are to remain in Hong Kong.
a)
b)
A scheme leading to citizenship is not possible under the British Nationality Act 1981 which, as Roy Harrington has already pointed out, does not allow for any variation of the minimum 3 and 5 year qualifying periods for BDTC status.
A further difficulty is that the structure of the 1981 Act does not
not allow a BDTC who has that status by connection with one dependent territory to acquire BDTC status by connection with another dependent territory. Thus BDTCs from Hong Kong would first have to renounce their citizenship before applying for Gibraltar status.
BDTC