for Chinese nationality.
The right of abode provisions agreed with the Chinese Government provide the best possible guarantee that those people established in Hong Kong and their children can continue to live there. There is no other satisfactory or reliable way to provide people in Hong Kong with what they want the right of abode there. In the unlikely event of any British nationals being forced to leave Hong Kong and having nowhere to go, we have made it clear that we would expect the Government of the day to consider sympathetically whether to admit such people on a case by case basis in the light of particular circumstances.
In trying to identify particular groups, one immediately runs into trouble. Of course, one never finds two groups in the same position. An examination of a group's composition shows that people within a particular group are not all in the same place.
That is a valuable reminder to the House that it is always possible for the Home Secretary to exercise his discretion to allow someone to enter the country and later qualify for British nationality if there is exceptional hardship. In the case of a minor, somebody under the age of the majority, Section 3 (1) of the British Nationality Act 1981 allows the Home Secretary to grant British nationality as a matter of discretion.
EXTRACT ENDS
LORD GLENARTHUR ON 20.01.86:
Debate on White Paper (Hong Kong Nationality Act 1985)
EXTRACT FROM HANSARD
The Government have also made it plain that if any British national were forced to leave Hong Kong and had nowhere else to go, we would expect the Government of the day to consider sympathetically whether to admit them on a case by case basis in the light of their particular circumstances.
EXTRACT ENDS
LORD GLENARTHUR ON 16.05.86:
Debate on Ethnic Minorities following motion tabled by Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos that the draft Hong Kong (British Nationality) Order 1986 be withdrawn
EXTRACT FROM HANSARD
I have listened very carefully to your Lordships' comments in voicing concerns for the future in Hong Kong for those who are not ethnically Chinese. The Government recognise that concern, and in response to what has been said I hope that it will allay that concern if I go further than the assurances so far given to the community by this Government by saying that we should consider it an obligation upon any future Government to treat with very considerable and particular sympathy the case for admission to the United Kingdom of any individual British national who, against all our present expectations, came under pressure to leave Hong Kong. I hope that your Lordships will recognise that in reflecting the
assure.NAT
SLM