Page
RESTRICTED
May 1993
The Rt Hon Sir David Steel KBE MP
House of Commons
London SW1A OAA
As you know, Mr Frederick Fung and colleagues from the
Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood called on
Douglas Hurd and me this week. Among other things they
expressed some concern about our intentions to introduce
certain measures to cope with the very large number of applications for British Nationality (Overseas) (BNO) status we
expect to receive between now and 1997. I believe he also raised these concerns with you. I thought you might find it useful to have a little background to this issue.
We cannot be sure, but possibly as many as 3.5 million Hong
Kong people may choose to register as BNOS before 1997. Under
500,000 have applied to date. If millions of applications were
made close to 1997, there would be no guarantee that the Hong
Kong Immigration Department would be able to register all the
applicants before the power to do so ceases on 1 July 1997.
was against this background that we decided to introduce a
programme to phase the registration by means of prescribed
cut-off dates (by age group). This is a familiar mechanism in
Hong Kong, used for the orderly issue of identity cards.
Governor would have discretion to accept late applications.
It
The
We
registration20.5/MIN/NJH
RESTRICTED