As you point out, applications from Hong Kong under these powers have been made in the past, and indeed some are under consideration at present. Your letter, and the Governor's, is clearly seeking a relaxation in present policy. But I think that before we could reach a decision on that, we need rather more information about what are the implications of existing policy, and what sort of relaxation is envisaged. We need that because, as you will appreciate, we have a legal obligation to consider these cases on a consistent basis and a change in policy, which could not apply to Hong Kong alone, would have to be clearly defined.
Before reaching a decision on whether or how the policy might be changed, I should be grateful if your officials could first obtain the following information from the Governor:-
i)
ii)
What is the size of the potentially eligible population in Hong Kong - ie how many Crown Servants and others in designated service are British citizens recruited in the United Kingdom with non- British citizen spouses? (I note the approximate figures in your letter, which coincide with those given earlier by the Governor. But Donald Tsang has recently told us that the number of expatriate Administrative Officers is 126, and the number of expatriate Inspectors and above in the police is 924.
Given our understanding of the terms of the recruitment of Inspectors, which are that they should be unmarried, we suspect that his figures may prove to be inconsistent with the Governor's earlier estimate because a significant proportion are likely to marry locally. The same may be true of expatriate civil servants recruited in the
United Kingdom, usually immediately after leaving university).
Having regard to the posts held by those concerned in approximately how many of them would the Governor be likely to support an application for the naturalisation of a spouse applying the existing criteria in the same way as they have been applied in the past? We know that in the past the Governor has taken a pretty rigorous line, as the criteria require, and we need to see what results a continuation of that policy might produce in order to assess the scope for, and consequences of, relaxing it.
iii) In what ways would the criteria be altered under the
more generous policy advocated by the Governor, and in how many of the eligible cases would the Governor be likely to support the application under the revised criteria?
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