Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
Telephone 01-
Sponzes
Brit
شکله
Pa-Sanket Fil H26/1.
270 2656
Your reference
John K Slaughter Esq House 7 Bellview Place 93 Repulse Bay Road HONG KONG
Our reference
Date
шко 300/8
RECEIVES NREGISTRY
12 JUN 1990
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DESA OFFICER
REGISTRY
INDEX
PA
Action Taken
FABAID
26 January 1990
Thank you for your letter of 12 November to the Foreign Secretary about the position of British citizens in Hong Kong married to Hong Kong Chinese spouses. I am sorry you have not received an earlier reply; but as you may have gathered the policy has been under review and we wanted to give you as substantive a reply as possible.
The Government's intention as you know is to introduce 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. The Government have concluded that it would not be right to include as part of this package an amendment to the British Nationality Act 1981 along the lines you proposed to allow time spent in Hong Kong to count towards the 3 years United Kingdom residence requirement for the spouses of British citizens who wish to acquire British citizenship. The policy of treating men and women equally as regards the requirements for obtaining British citizenship following marriage to a British citizen was carefully considered when the British Nationality Act 1981 was being prepared. It was clearly untenable to retain the old position under the British Nationality Act 1948 whereby the wife of a British citizen had a right to British citizenship regardless of whether she had ever been to the UK. The requirement that both men and women should fulfil a period of UK residence was regarded by Parliament as having the merit of treating the sexes equally while ensuring that citizenship was obtained only by those who had some residential link with this country. Special arrangements apply for British citizens serving abroad in Crown Service but, for the most part, we expect that the wives of expatriate British citizens will achieve settlement and, eventually, citizenship in the normal way if they, in due course, accompany their husbands to the UK.
The Government understand the concern which you and others have expressed about the position of British citizens' spouses in the