Reply:
(b)
(c)
હ
Mr President,
(a)
- 20
20 -
whether, in view of the British Government's decision to give full citizenship to the non-Chinese ethnic minorities, those BNSS places which have been given to the ethnic-minorities can be re-distributed to other unsuccessful BNSS applicants; and
whether the Government has any plan to urge the British Government to extend the BNSS to ethnic-Chinese Hong Kong permanent residents wishing to renounce their Chinese citizenship or to grant them full British citizenship outside the BNSS; if not, why not?
British citizenship was introduced by the British Nationality Act 1981, which commenced on 1 January 1983. Between 1983 and the end of 1996 when the responsibility for processing renunciations of British Citizenship was handed over to the British Trade Commission, which will be the future British Consulate General, a total of 43 British citizens submitted declarations of renunciation under Section 12 of the British Nationality Act 1981 through the Hong Kong Immigration Department Their acting as an agent of the United Kingdom Government. declarations were all registered by the Secretary of State, and they all ceased to be British Citizens. Although there is nothing to distinguish a beneficiary under the BNSS from any other British citizen, 20 of these 43 persons voluntarily surrendered certificates of registration acquired under the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1990 as evidence of their British Citizenship to be renounced.
Under section 1(1) of the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1990, the Secretary of State shall register as British citizens up to 50,000 principal applicants. The Act does not provide for the registration of an additional number of principal applicants on account of some BNSS beneficiaries subsequently renouncing their British citizenship. Once a principal applicant is registered as British citizen under the Act, a place is used up. Renunciation of his British citizenship does not release a new place for another principal applicant.