PT MON
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
Telephone 01-
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RD Langford Esq
Flat 3B
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19-23 Ventril Road
Happy Valley
Dear Sir
HONG KONG
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Your reference
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Date...
340/8
RECEIVED REGISTRY
12 JUN 1990
DESK OFFICER
AFGISTHY
INDEX
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Action Tak
4 June 1990
Thank you for your letter of 23 May to Francis Maude. I have been asked to reply.
The Government have, as you know, introduced legislation to provide for the grant of British citizenship to a limited number of key people and their dependants in both the public and private sectors in Hong Kong. Ministers concluded that it would not be right include as part of this package an amendment to the British Nationality Act 1981 to allow time spent in Hong Kong to count towards the three year United Kingdom residence requirement for the spouses of British citizens who wish to acquire British citizenship. The whole basis of the British Nationality Act is that citizenship should involve a period of serving abroad in Crown Service but, for the most part, we expect that the wives of expatriate British citizens will achieve settlement and, eventually, qualify for citizenship in the normal way if they, due course, accompany their husbands to the UK.
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Ministers do, however, understand the concern which has been expressed about the position of British citizens' spouses in the special circumstances of Hong Kong. They do, of course, already have the right to come in this country with their husbands or wives for settlement at any time, either before or after 1997. During the Second Reading of the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Bill on 19 April, the Home Secretary gave further assurance that the widower of a British citizen who was resident in Hong Kong at the time of his or her death would ba allowed to settle in the United Kingdom at any time as if coming here as the spouse of a British citizen. To benefit from this assurance, the widow or widower must still be resident in Hong Kong, not have remarried, and not have citizenship of a third country.
SUYAND