Hong Kong (Ethnic Minorities)
9 JULY 1993
egations paid for by some taxpayer somewhere. I therefore have no interest in Hong Kong. My only possible interest lies in the fact that it owes me £2 for the coffee.
My real interest stems from my belief that Britain is in danger of flouting its inescapable duty to a group of citizens whose rights are being ignored and whose future will be unstable and constitutionally deprived unless we do something. It would be terrible if we told these 5,000 people that they belong nowhere-that they are nationals of nowhere-especially as they have served Britain so well in the past.
I believe that nothing would be lost by saying yes to these people. If the Government really mean what they say -that if the 5,000 get into trouble, they will help them —what is lost by giving them passports? Home Office Ministers, including the Minister answering this debate, are people of sincerity and judgment. I appreciate that the last thing that I can hope for is that the Minister will suddenly announce in an Adjournment debate that that policy is to be overturned. However, I hope that he can at least give an assurance that on the basis of what appear to be facts and the real problems of real people he will think about what I and others, including the Hong Kong Legislative Council, the Governor and the representatives of the Chinese Government, have said, I hope that the Minister will at least say, "I shall look at this again and think about what has been said."
2.39 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Charles Wardle): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) on selecting this subject for debate and I welcome the opportunity that it provides for me to set out the Government's position on the Hong Kong ethnic minorities. There has been some misunderstanding on the subject over the years and I hope that I can put matters right.
My hon. Friend spoke about Macau. Portugal is not granting Portuguese citizenship to all residents of Macau, nor can people travel there from Hong Kong and acquire Portuguese citizenship. I do not think that my hon. Friend suggested that, but he may be as aware as I am that in a debate on Monday in another place it was suggested that the Portuguese Government had said that they would give Portuguese nationality to all those from Hong Kong who apply in Macau.
It is not true to say that residence in Macau leads to the acquisition of Portuguese citizenship. The Portuguese Nationality Act 1981 provides that only children born in Macau to existing Portuguese citizens will get Portuguese citizenship. Portugal is not operating any kind of assurance package after the fashion of our selection scheme under the terms of the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1990.
Sir Teddy Taylor: I accept everything that the Minister has said. Does he accept that 100,000 Portuguese passports have already been issued to adults? Therefore we are not debating an insignificant problem. While I agree that what was said in the Lords was rubbish, there is a problem.
Mr. Wardle: My hon. Friend's estimate that 100,000 citizens of Macau have Portuguese citizenship is right as
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far as I know. That number may increase. As Portuguese citizens, those people who are not in Macau may travel to the EC and may visit this country. If they want to reside here they will have to make it clear that they are not dependent on social security. That applies to any EC national.
The issue raised by my hon. Friend is not new. Over the past six or seven years it has been debated regularly in the House and within the past six months there have been two debates in the Kong Kong Legislative Council in which the Government's position has been explained. There is clearly a need for our position to be repeated because of questions asked in Hong Kong and in this country by my hon. Friend and by many others.
I should like to make plain which members of the Hong Kong community we are debating. We estimate that currently in Hong Kong about 28,000 people belong to the non-Chinese ethnic minorities. The great majority of them have another nationality besides British. For example, most of them hold citizenship of either India or Pakistan. Perhaps 7,000 of them have only British nationality in the form of British dependent territories citizenship or British nationality overseas.
The question at the heart of the debate is whether special measures should be taken for that section of the Hong Kong community, or whether they should compete, like everybody else, for the 50,000 British citizenship places that we have already made available under the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act.
Representations have been made on behalf of that group for a number of years and Parliament carefully considered their position when formulating its citizenship scheme for Hong Kong in 1990. It concluded that there was no case for making special citizenship provision for them and that remains our position.
Let us look at the arguments that have been advanced in favour of special treatment. First, it is said that after 1997, the ethnic minorities will not have a proper nationality and passport. That refers to the status of British national (overseas)-BN(O) or British overseas citizen-BOC-and their related passports. The British Government do not accept that those nationality statuses are in any way inferior to BDTC status. There are over 1 million people in the world with BOC status and the BOC passport is well established. There are more than 500,000 people in Hong Kong now with BN(O) status and the BN(O) passport is accepted throughout the world. Holders do not need entry clearance for visits to the United Kingdom although, like everyone else, they require entry clearance if they wish to come here on a more permanent basis.
BN(O) and BOC passports give the holders an entitlement to registration as British citizens provided that they have completed five years' residence in the United Kingdom and have achieved settled status. Those passports also confer British consular protection worldwide and will do so in the Hong Kong special administrative region, as it will be known, after 1997 if the holders are not Chinese nationals as well. The ethnic minorities will therefore be in no different position in those respects after 1997.
Secondly, the ethnic minorities have expressed fears that, unlike the ethnic Chinese, they will not have the right of abode in Hong Kong after 1997. In our view, those fears are quite groundless. The Joint Declaration and article 24(6) of the Basic Law guarantee the ethnic minorities the