14-JUL-1993
TRANSCRIPT
14:40
Gallagher
MR ALASTAIR GOODLAD
23
Ay
0491 579838 P.23
SELECT COMMITTEE 14 JULY 93
MR GOODLAD:
1
Let me answer it this way, if I may. No members of the ethnic community will become stateless after 1997, they will all retain a form of British nationality after 1997, either BNO or BOC, neither will their children nor their grandchildren be stateless. The Hong Kong British Nationality Order of 1986 specifically provides that the children of British dependent territory citizens will have BOC status if they would otherwise be stateless. Grandchildren of the original British dependent territory citizens will in most cases have an entitlement to acquire BOC status by registration. On the point of Chinese citizenship, the joint declaration and Article 24.6 of the Basic Law guarantee the ethnic minorities' right of abode in Hong Kong if they do not have a right of abode elsewhere and the Chinese authorities have said that people in Hong Kong, of non-Chinese raçe, are welcome to remain and have suggested that they might wish to apply for Chinese citizenship in the future.
MR KANAVAN:
But there is no guarantee that they will get it. Can I remind you that this committee in 1989 came out with a recommendation and more recently the Legislative Council in Hong Kong came out with a recommendation that more sympathetic treatment should be given to these people by the British government, and yet these recommendations seem to have fallen on deaf ears. I plead with you, could you not at least give our committee an assurance that you will look again at this problem, we are not talking about a
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