PS/Mr Goodlad
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HKD 340/6
Po
119 AUG 1992
M
26/em
197
38
FROM: N J Cox
DATE: 18 August 1992
Hong Kong Dept
cc:
Sir J Coles Mr Ricketts ofr
RIGHT OF ABODE IN THE UK FOR CHILDREN BORN BEFORE 1983 TO CERTAIN BRITISH CITIZENS RESIDENT IN HONG KONG
23
A 24
B
As discussed with the Minister of State this morning I attach copies of some of the recent papers on this subject.
1.
2.
At issue is one provision of the British Nationality Act 1981 which affects (among other people) the children born in Hong Kong (or elsewhere outside the UK) before 1983 of Hong Kong people who had acquired full British citizenship, eg by a period of residence in the United Kingdom. Their children born 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 Dependant Territory Citizenship (BDTC).
3.
OMELCO raised this problem with Lord Caithness in July 1991. About 140 families and a total of 220 children are affected. The effect is to encourage these families to leave Hong Kong and come to the United Kingdom so that their older children can acquire right of abode by residence. But this would be to encourage the brain-drain (many of the parents are professionally qualified) and be contrary to the spirit of the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1990.
4. FCO Ministers have repeatedly put this problem to Home Office Ministers and urged that the Home Secretary should use his discretion to register all 220 children as British citizens. However the Home Office have been nervous about setting precedents elsewhere.
5.
During the Secretary of State's visit to Hong Kong in July, Mr Garel-Jones persuaded the Home Secretary to agree to "look at these cases generously and speedily" as they came before him and to The Secretary of State's making this public.
6.
The Home Secretary told M Garel-Jones that he thought that in practice more than half the children would succeed in their applications for full British citizenship. On his return to
rtof.abode.nig
JEB
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