RESTRICTED
LIKD
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
44
London SW1A 2AH
25 August 1992
Mrs Henry Keswick
Special Adviser to the Home Secretary
Home Office
Queen Anne's Gate
London SW1
Dear Terra.
HKD 34016
From The Minister of State
ра
ли
26/m=
RIGHT OF ABODE IN THE UK FOR CHILDREN BORN BEFORE 1983 TO CERTAIN BRITISH CITIZENS RESIDENT IN HONG KONG
1. We discussed the other day the provision of the British Nationality Act 1981 which affects (among other people) the children born in Hong Kong before 1983 of Hong Kong people who had previously acquired full British citizenship, eg by a
Their children born period of residence in the United Kingdom. since 1983 are entitled to full British citizenship, i.e. including right of abode in the United Kingdom, but children born earlier are eligible only for British Dependent Territory Citizenship (BDTC). About 140 families and a total of 220 children are affected.
2. The effect is to encourage these families to leave Hong Kong and come to the United Kingdom, so that the older children can acquire by residence the right of abode which their younger brothers and sisters enjoy automatically. Since many of the parents are professionally qualified, this encourages the brain-drain and is contrary to the spirit of the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1990.
3. The solution is for the Home Secretary to use his discretion to register all these children as British Citizens, without requiring any prior UK residence qualifications. Kong is a special case; action for Hong Kong need not set a
Nor need action precedent for British nationals elsewhere.
here set a precedent for other groups in Hong Kong.
Hong
4. Hong Kong politicians have been raising this subject with visiting FCO Ministers for more than a year now, most recently
RESTRICTED
/with the