06 MAR '92 13:29 PRIVATE OFFICE QAG 071 273 3596
P.3/4
The Home Secretary would not normally expect to waive this requirement unless the couple had been married for three years and unless the employing service could demonstrate that the naturalisation of a spouse would be in its interests, for example, as facilitating a posting abroad or retaining the services of essential personnel.
The Home Secretary would also wish to be satisfied that, because of the spouse's service abroad, it was unlikely that the applicant would be able to meet the residence requirements in the foreseeable future.
Officers, who are serving in the Royal Hong Kong Police, are in designated service and their spouses may, therefore, be exempted from the normal United Kingdom residence requirements if the above criteria are met.
The spouses of British citizens, who are in Crown or designated service abroad, are regarded as special cases because the work which their husbands or wives do is particularly closely identified with United Kingdom interests and because there may be operational or security reasons which would make it undesirable to apply the normal residence requirements.
Although expatriate British citizens, who are in business or who are working in the private sector in Hong Kong, are contributing in no small way to the continuing prosperity and stability of the Territory, I am afraid that there is no power to waive the three year residence requirements in respect of them.
The reason that the legislation requires applicants to have resided in the United Kingdom for 3 years at the date of application is that a spouse is expected to have demonstrated a connection with the United Kingdom independent of marriage.
The concerns, which you have expressed, were taken into account during the debate on the British National (Hong Kong) Act 1990. As you no doubt know, Ministerial assurances were later given about the eligibility of the spouses, widows and widowers of British citizens in Hong Kong to settle in the United Kingdom.
As to the time taken to process naturalisation applications, I am glad to be able to tell you that considerable progress is being made in clearing the backlog of citizenship applications. This fell from 86,000 to 51,000 in 1991. If the present rate of progress continues, and assuming no further great upsurge in applications, those who apply for naturalisation now could expect to receive a decision in about 12 to 15 months time.
/I hope that...