The great majority of these professionals would rather stay in Hong
Kong. They are almost all ethnic Chinese and their families and
careers are in the territory. But they also want the assurance which possession of foreign citizenship and foreign passport give the assurance that if necessary they could leave Hong Kong quickly and be admitted to a different country. Ideally, they would like some means of obtaining a foreign passport while they continued to live and work in Hong Kong, but at present they can normally only qualify for foreign citizenship and a foreign passport by actually
leaving the territory to make a new life overseas.
The Government is proposing to grant British citizenship to a limited number of key people without them ever having to come to Britain in order to qualify for this. Our scheme will cover a maximum of 50,000 households which when dependants are included means a total of up to 225,000 people. The scheme will be
selective. People will qualify under a fair points system similar
to the systems operated by Canada and Australia in their immigration policies. Priority will be given to such factors as an employee's importance to his employer's business, professional qualifications, personal links with Britain and the ability to speak English.
Arrangements are being made for all applications under the
scheme to be processed by 30 June 1997 when the scheme will end. The Government's scheme will be strictly limited in numbers, scope
and duration. The legislation will be ring fenced to ensure that it cannot be used as a vehicle to bring about wider changes in the
government's immigration policy.
As the statement makes clear, Hong Kong is a British
responsibility and one which we shall not shirk. However Hong Kong is also an international centre, with huge international investment.
We have already made it clear to other governments, both bilaterally and in international fora, that Hong Kong's major trading partners have a strong interest in the territory's continuing stability and
prosperity. We shall continue our efforts to mobilise the international community to follow our lead in supporting Hong Kong in whatever ways they can, including the introduction of assurances schemes similar to our own.