Governor: I don't know whether the Honourable gentleman is -- I don't know whether I am being inarticulate or whether perhaps the Honourable gentleman has not fully grasped what I am saying. The only qualification as far as British consular protection is concerned, for somebody who acquired a passport under the British Nationality Scheme, is exactly the same qualification as applies to the Governor of Hong Kong. Because of the international conventions which are referred to in a British passport we cannot give full consular protection when there is dual nationality. But the fact that somebody has a British passport under the British Nationality Scheme is not itself relevant to or evidence of dual nationality. It is an extremely important point that people should recognise and that people should accept.
I repeat one other point - or make it perhaps in more robust language. If somebody turns up at the British Consulate after 1 July 1997 and says, "I've got a British passport, I'm a British citizen, I want consular protection". Somebody at the British Consulate is not going to say, "Did you get your passport through the British Nationality Scheme? If you did I'm afraid that we can't offer you full consular protection." They are going to say, "You have got a British passport, we will offer you full consular protection." If the authorities then provided evidence of dual nationality, the British Consulate in those circumstances would not say, "Sorry, there is absolutely nothing we can do to help you", they would say, "Formally, under the Hague Convention we can't give you the assistance which we would otherwise have been able to provide but we can still help you as before 1997 we were helping people with dual nationality who got into consular difficulties in China".
So I want the Honourable gentleman to recognise that there is no concession that holding a passport under the British Nationality Scheme implies or explicitly makes the point that one has dual nationality.
Mr Bruce Liu (in Chinese): I have not misunderstood the situation because I really have looked into the exceptional cases very carefully. I would like to know why is it that four years ago when the UK Government was pushing the BNSS as a form of political insurance, why did it not then make it clear to Hong Kong citizens that consular protection would not be afforded in full in the situation of dual nationality? I would like to know whether any officials have been guilty of negligence of duty?
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Governor: No, I don't believe they have. What I hope has been said at every stage is that a passport acquired under the British Nationality Scheme is the same as the passport that I have got and it gives you the same entitlements in Hong Kong as in Papua New Guinea, or Panama City or Patagonia. Anywhere, you have the right to full consular protection unless unless there is evidence, satisfactory evidence of dual nationality. If there is satisfactory evidence of dual nationality it does not mean that a British Embassy or British Consulate is not prepared to go in and bat for you, is not prepared to fight your corner. What it does mean is there are restrictions on the extent to which it can do that. That is the same in Hong Kong as everywhere else, Hong Kong is not being put in a special category.
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