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category are British Overseas citizens, British Protected Persons
and British Subjects whose stay in Hong Kong is not subject to
any conditions or who have applied for BDTC status before the
date of the Bill's enactment.
9.
The Foreign Secretary and I think it right that eligibility
should be extended to include Certificate of Identity (CofI)
holders who, although not yet British nationals, have applied for
BDTC status by the date of the Bill's enactment. A significant
number of key personnel are likely to be CofI holders, and some
will have already applied for BDTC status. However, the
procedures for naturalisation as BDTCs are detailed and can take
many months and we would not wish to exclude such people from the
new citizenship scheme simply on the grounds that their
applications have not been processed.
10. In all cases there will be a requirement that the applicant
should be ordinarily resident in Hong Kong. The conditions as
to nationality and residence would not, however, apply to the
spouses and children of successful applicants; the exclusion from
registration as citizens of those dependents who were not British
nationals resident in Hong Kong would hinder the purposes of the
scheme by encouraging the whole family to come to the UK to
establish a common right of abode. In cases where a successful
applicant ceased to be ordinarily resident in Hong Kong after
gaining citizenship, he or she would lose the ability under the
Bill (which is not available under existing nationality law) to
transmit citizenship to a spouse in any marriage contracted after
ceasing to be ordinarily resident in Hong Kong (although children
of the marriage would receive it in the normal way).
Distribution of Places
Annex B shows how the 50,000 assurances would be allocated
between the four component schemes. 36,000 places will go to
11.
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