3 April 1991
Lord Butterfield of Stechford
39 Clarendon Suite
Cambridge
CB1 1JX
NSID
C
Thank you for your letter of 18 March about the Hong
Kong Nationality Scheme.
As you will recall The British Nationality (Hong
Kong) Act 1990 was introduced to grant British citizenship to key people in Hong Kong to give them the assurance needed to persuade them to remain in the territory. In setting a ceiling on the scheme 50,000 principal beneficiaries or perhaps as many as 225,000 people including spouses and dependent children under 18
the Parliament had to balance our desire to be as effective
as possible in restoring confidence in Hong Kong against our ability to accept the individuals concerned for settlement in this country, should that ever be
necessary.
FIQABD/CVL