RESTRICTED
<
www
registration under the scheme was initially slow because all applications had to be processed and potentially successful applicants interviewed before registration could start. Registration now on target. 20,980 Principal Beneficiaries have been registered up to mid January, plus 36,682 dependants (total of 57,662). Average family size is 2.75. Target for
registration under first tranche is about 39,500 Principal
Beneficiaries, the remaining 10,500 to be allocated under the
second tranche due to open early 1994.
4. All BDTCS are eligible to compete under the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1990. The second tranche will
start early in 1994. Ethnic origin is not a factor in the
scheme (and since information is not collected on such a basis
we have no figures to show the success to date of the ethnic
minorities in the scheme).
5.
There will be some adjustments for the second tranche
which will require a new Order in Council. Home Office have
yet to submit on the details.
6.
Ms Lau has complained that fewer people will benefit from
the Scheme than originally estimated (Ministers announced the figure of 225,000 as an illustrative maximum), because the
number of dependants is proving to be lower than that estimated by the Home Office. Ministers always made it clear
that the key figure was the maximum of 50,000 households to be
covered (and the 1990 Act spells this out). The figure of
225,000 was only ever intended as an illustrative, not a
definitive, upper limit.
7.
British Citizenship for Wives and Widows of Ex-Servicemen
During the second reading of the British Nationality
(Hong Kong) Act 1990 the Home Secretary gave an assurance that
the spouses of any British citizens who had died and who had
RESTRICTED